'danced fatalistically with nature'

She had tea waiting when Ethan came back. They sat outside. He wore nothing over his short-sleeved shirt despite the chill. Pammy wondered whether it would be all right to get him a sweater. She decided finally it might be taken as an imposition of sorts, a subtle belittling of his distress. What comfort, really, would warm clothing give him now? It occurred to her that people unconsciously honored the processes of the physical world, danced fatalistically with nature whenever death took someone close to them. She believed Ethan wanted to feel what was here. If it rained, he wouldn't move. If she draped a sweater over his shoulders, he might well shrug it off. We are down to eating and sleeping, if that. Rudiments, she thought. Whatever the minimum. That's what we're down to. She watched color spread across the sky beyond the Camden Hills. A sunset is the story of the world's day. They spun back away from it, upended like astronauts, but snug in their seats, night-riding, as the first stars pinched into view.

—Don DeLillo, Players (1977)