Modern Gods. Nick Laird

huge island of PNG, and next to it New Britain, an archipelagic scatter, a broken grin in the gridded blue, small and very far away from Old Britain, and from New York. She stood up and looked closer. Here was New Ireland, and here, below it, was the little curved splinter of New Ulster.

      She found herself thinking of that moment when one steps from the lip of an aircraft onto the top of the steps, and the tropical heat hits you, remaking you. She wanted that, to be remade.

      Half an hour later, Liz sank down onto the sofa and began ostentatiously leafing through her stack of printouts.

      “So. A TV show,” Kenneth said, not lowering his paper, and using the abstracted, bored, and slightly hostile tone he reserved for his nearest and dearest.