dennie’s Reviews > The Emperor of Gladness > Status Update

“Labas.” Grazina stirred next to him. “Is it tomorrow yet?”
“I think so,” Hai said, looking down at himself, still here.

"He wanted to tell her that the body was just this stupid little shovel we use to dig through the hours only to end up surrounded by more empty space than we know what to do with."

How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found in here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined houses by a toxic river. That among a pile of salvaged trash, he would come closest to all he ever wanted to be: a consciousness sitting under a light-bulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody's son.

"The hardest thing in the world is to live only once."