“Any moment now, I thought, he was going to wake up. Any moment.”

“One day, I decided to be an island. I took off my clothes and walked into the sea, then floated there, bobbing along with the tide, suspended by my inflatable tube and water wings.”

“I remember clearly the afternoon that she stood at the corner beside the door of the tourist centre in Gdansk.”

“As the wind continued to howl and groan through her decaying body, she began to sing her story.”