Living was messy. These uniform flats, stacked on top of each other, were tidy solutions. 

It is not weak to avoid war,” I said, and my voice broke. Tears pricked at my eyes, and I let them. “It is the strongest thing you could do, to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

I was born on one continent; I will die on another. This is the story of many. It's everything in between that's different. Who would I have become if we had landed in Perth? If my parents had chosen Toronto, London, San Francisco? And what if friction and gravity has been kinder the year I was eight? What country, then, might yet have been ours?

As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today - the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.