- [first lines]
- Isaac: I don't remember *any* of what I'm about to tell you. I only know what the police and coroner's report said. But on the morning of April 5th, 1989, a high-speed car crash occurred, on a rural highway in upstate New York. There were 2 fatalities: my mother died on impact, my father died of hemorrhaging from a torn pulmonary vein and massive internal injuries. I'm listed as a male survivor, approximately 8 years of age. We were going down a road. Nobody had said much of anything yet. The road was supposed to have been longer...
- Isaac: I had always gotten stares. You know, the ones people give you, or avoid giving you. But once in a while, wheeling in and out of the curve of people, I'd catch someone looking at me. And I'd see something else in their eyes - jealousy. They were jealous of me, jealous that I got to *sit down* and they didn't. Does that sound crazy to you?
- Fiona: People who get off on braces and wheel chairs are called devotés. They're a joke, they're the bottom rung. Above them are the pretenders. They wear the braces, they push the wheels, but they don't *belong* to their chairs. Still, if they want to fantasize, that's their choice. Then there are the wannabes. You saw how crazy they are.
- Isaac: What makes you different than a wannabe or a pretender?
- Fiona: I'm a unique case. I don't want to be paralyzed.
- Isaac: You don't?
- Fiona: I am already paralyzed. I'm just trapped in a walking person's body...
- Wannabe Group Leader: You think I chose to be this way? Do you have any idea how many people in my life I've lost because I've revealed myself to them? I tell you why - as soon as you tell me where those people went.
- Fiona: I used to think if aliens landed, and they saw all the able-bodied people, and then they saw the people on their wheel chairs, they would say that those must be the kings and queens. Because they have special ramps, and they never have to get up.