a cooperative game

Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.

[…] he heard the birds sing, and at that he felt comforted.

Nevermind that she didn't know him, or that he was Japanese. Nevermind that she saw herself as always alone, despite the many people in her life.