My initiation into the mysteries of Zen Buddhism had taught me many things, but the most important was not to argue with my wife. ‘Go with the flow,’ the great sage Oboko said, and I’d been doing it for five months now. Lil had been getting madder and madder.

After about twenty seconds of silence (relatively speaking: Larry leapt up to put in toast for himself; Evie tried a brief burst of monologue on dinosaurs which was smothered with a stare), I (theoretically the way to avoid arguments is to surrender before the attack has been fully launched) said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Lil.’

The Dice Man (Luke Rhinehart)