So we stopped at the warehouse where your father's uncle bought some clothes by the scale. He bought enough clothes to fill twenty trash bags. Throwing about five trash bags into the back seat, he was able to fit five more into the trunk. Getting into the car, we placed all the other trash bags between our legs, underneath them and on our laps, beside ourselves, behind our backs and our heads, on either side, piling them underneath our arms and above them, squeezing them into our crotches, filling the pits of our knees and arms, making stacks that came up to our noses and our asses. They were not comfortable. They were plastic bags. They were black: they absorbed the midday sun. They made us hot and sweaty. They stuck to our skin. These plastic trash bags full of clothing stuck to our skin. It was disgusting. They smelled. It was like being poached in oil with sweet and sour pepper. The clothes were spilling out. Somebody would wear this filthy shirt squeezing out of my crotch. It was disgusting. There were balls of nylon stocking squeezing themselves into my ass. When we turned into a back alley and stopped, I was grateful.

"Is this the store?" I asked.

– Verses 175-176 from the chapter called Adolescence

Once upon a time, in fairy book land (that is, medieval Europe), there was a thing called common ground. This almost mythical farmland was controlled by individual farmers only during the growing and harvesting seasons. After that, until the next growing season, it was freely available for grazing and for other purposes. Land with a fence around it, or a hedge, was off limits - enclosed, so to speak. In those days, mankind ruled. Then came a time of change. A strange, new king came to rule in Britain. His name was Progress the First. His Queen was Greed; they named their son, Efficiency, the crown prince. They enclosed all the land in Britain. Other nations soon followed suit. By fiat, they encouraged the enclosure of land. Germany encouraged, then France and Denmark - even the Russian czar. But Poland was among the last: we clung to our old ways. We felt the common ground slipping from underneath our feet. Finally, we had to give way. Progress ruled.

– Verse 146 from the chapter called Childhood

In the following minutes, your mother kept wiggling herself downward. At first, Jesus had no idea what was going on. (His left hand was cupping her breast.) Then he realized: she was pushing up her shirt. Her brassiere was gone, having been removed before going to bed. Jesus was perfectly free to place his cupping hand around her waist, and then, on the way back to where it just had been, to slip it ever so innocently underneath her shirt and to place it directly on her naked skin. He did that. Your mother was now breathing heavily.

– Verse 633 from the chapter called Security

We stared at each other for a long time. Then I got up and ambled over to her side. She removed her mask from her mouth and looked up. Her mouth was open; it was only open a little bit - her lips, a centimeter apart, perhaps - but it seemed like her mouth was hanging open; her lower lip curled out; her lips were thick; in fact, her mouth was so big; her chin, so small; it was very strange; her lower set of teeth were pushed against her lip; one of them was wildly out of place, leaning forward, crazily, like the peasant warrior, but you could barely see it, since it hid underneath that huge lip. Her face was very funny. She looked oblivious, wide-eyed and naïve. It seemed as if she were totally forgetting herself. I laughed. I couldn't help myself: she was so amusing.

– Verse 477 from the chapter called Bohemia

A man is not a rabbit, as my grandfather used to say (whenever he received farmer's cheese on his plate); it's hard to imagine, whatever level of intelligence the first hunter possessed, that, after having dodged left and right in a vain attempt at chase, he didn't decide just to sit there and wait for his prey to come wandering within range. Perhaps having climbed into a nearby kola tree, the first hunter waited patiently while chewing its dry fruit, satisfying his hunger pangs until some succulent piece of game, unaware of its new predator hiding in the branches, came wandering underneath and WOOSH! went the rock, or WHIZ! went the wooden spear, aided by gravity to come violently crashing (or piercing, as the case may have been) right between the shoulders.

– Verse 2 from the chapter called Arms