Doerr

His flight had been futile; everything remains unburied, floating just at the surface, a breeze away from being dredged back up. And why? Save yourself, the nieghbors had told him. Save yourself. Joseph wonders if he is beyond saving, if the only kind of man who can be saved is the man who never needed saving in the first place. (Anthony Doerr, "The Caretaker," in "The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories," ed. by Ben Marcus)