I am a lover of words and tragically beautiful things, poor timing and longing, and all things with soul, and I wonder if that means I am entirely broken, or if those are the things that have been keeping me whole.

P.S. Please give my love to Tink, she always was such a funny little bug

What about damp? What about flooding? Wouldn't it make sense to have a little lawn or garden as a sort of buffer zone between the house and the water? But then it wouldn't be Venice, said Connie's voice in my head. Then it would be Staines.

On old maps, cartographers would draw strange beasts around the margins and write phrases such as "Here be dragons." That's where monsters exist: in the unmapped spaces, in the places where we haven't filled in all the gaps...