Chapter 28

• “from the outside I must look like a cocoon, a spook, face enshrouded like this”
• “if I were Moira I could do it without a screwdriver. I’m not Moira.”
• if Moira thought she could create a utopia by shutting herself in a women-only enclave she was sadly mistaken. Men were not just going to go away, I said. You couldn't just ignore them.
• I said I was in love. She said that was no excuse. Moira was always more logical than I am.
• “She was still my oldest friend. Is.”
• “It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the President and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.”
• “That was when they suspended the Constitution. they said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets
• There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.
• “Newspapers were shut censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said.”
• “In some strange way [Moira] was gleeful, as if this was what she’d been expecting for some time and now she’d been proven right.”
• “Hush, he said. He was still kneeling on the floor. You know I’ll always take care of you. I thought, already he’s starting to patronize me.”
• The Pornomarts were shut [...] no longer any Feels on Wheels vans and Bun-Dle Buggies circling the square
• It's not valid, he repeated obstinately. See that red light? Means it's not valid. [...] See? he said again, still with that smile, as if he knew some private joke he wasn't going to tell me.
• All they needed to do is push a few buttons. We're cut off.
• There were marches, of course, a lot of women and some men. But they were smaller than you might have thought.
• “I didn’t go on any of the marches. Luke said it would be futile and I had to think about them, my family
• “I started doing more housework, more baking. I tried not to cry at mealtimes.”
• Adolescents are such prudes.
• “That night, after I’d lost my job, Luke wanted me to make love. Why didn’t I want to? Desperation along should have driven me.
• “He doesn’t mind this, I thought. He doesn’t mind at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other’s, any more. Instead, I am his.”
• It’s outrageous, one woman said, but without belief. What was it about this that made us feel we deserved it?