"I saw her through the glass wall. She was sitting very calm and composed drinking a Diet Coke and writing 500 words on A NATION UNITED IN HORROR. I watched her nails clicking on the keyboard. Petra had lovely nails. I tapped on the glass and she looked up at me. That's when it hit me. She looked at me as though I were a complete stranger. There was just this look of absolute blank incomprehension on her face. Then slowly I watched it change. I could see the precise moment when she recognised me. Me. Her partner of 6 years. Then I saw her raise one of those lovely manicured hands to her mouth and gasp. And I knew. She wasn't gasping because I looked a mess with my broken nose and blood on my jacket. She wasn't gasping from relief that I'd survived. She was gasping because this was the first moment since it had happened that she had even remembered my existence in the world. And she knew that I saw this."
-- Chris Cleave, Incendiary
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