Amal El-Mohtar

“And everyone is alive, somewhere in time.”

“Adventure works in any strand—it calls to those who care more for living than for their lives.”

“Tell me something true, or tell me nothing at all.”

“There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? I imagine you laughing at my small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I have you still? Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never—and I have to write the rest of this not knowing.”