"…the pictures come to you one by one and you look at them, some of them last longer than others…"

"I'm beginning to lose it, you're afraid of how weak you are, that you can't get her all back into you again and now the whole thing is going out of your body and it's more in your mind than your body, the pictures come to you one by one and you look at them, some of them last longer than others, you were together in a very white clean place, a coffee house, having breakfast together, and the place is so white that against it you can see her clearly, her blue eyes, her smile the colors of her clothes, even the print of the newspaper she's reading when she's not looking up at you, the light brown and red and gold of her hair when she's got her had down reading, the brown coffee, the brown rolls, all against that white table and those white plates and silver urns and silver knives and spoons, and against that quiet of the sleepy people in that room sitting alone at their tables with just come chinking and clattering off spoons and cups in saucers and some hushed voices her voice now and then rising and falling."

-from "Break It Down" by Lydia Davis.