There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

Emptiness felt like a living thing. A parasite growing in the center of your chest, somewhere behind your heart, taking every ounce of warmth and light and happiness and consuming it until there's nothing left. Emptiness feels like exhaustion, like there's no reason to fight, no reason to take another breath, no reason to try to survive. But emptiness also feels like freedom. Because it doesn't just take the good, it takes the bad, too--the anger, the bitterness, the pain--and when it's done, it leaves you with just you. A cold, shell-like echo of yourself, but still you.

Nah," I said. "But if it does, just tell him I said to get back on the bike."
"What?"
"He'll understand.

You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.

The house was as empty as a beer closet in a premises where painters have been at work.

Once in a while you could be in a house full of people and you still find emptiness in your heart.