" The pretty thing you are looking at now is me, and I came into the world just as I left it. I'm not more than a few minutes old and my mother is already dead, her forehead slick with sweat, and cool with the pallor of icebox butter. I am tied to my mother's body by a terrible rope that is a shiny, twisted midnight blue-black. The doctor is holding me up to the light, but now I am dead. And yes, I left the world just as I came into it. I'm wearing nothing but blood..."