Because she was too lonely for her own safety, his friends gave her love in its purest form. They didn't even bother to wrap it. She found love one morning on her doorstep. She knew immediately what it was, though she had never seen it, and even less experienced it. It was love at first sight, in a sense. It came in a block, similar to granite, with a finer grain, and, as far as she could see, much tougher. It would have made a good weapon in a riot. It would have broken a few bones on its way to a policeman's head. It was pinkish in colour, nothing really impressive or beautiful, its shape more or less cubic, with rounded angles. She bent over, slightly hurting her back in the process, and picked it up, and panting under its hefty weight, carried it to her bedroom. Because there was no accompanying note, she didn't call her friends to thank them, though she had no doubt about whom had made the present. After all, she didn't have so many friends, and many of them were gathering dust on a shelf in the living room, a dozen little globes of what looked like badly dried dirt. But love was different. It was much heavier, or denser. She had no trouble to imagine that she could develop a full-time relationship with it.

She had no trouble to imagine the future trouble that lay inside, either. She let her fingers