The Museum of Failures

by Thrity Umrigar

There is no room for hope in the museum of failures. Even if it hangs on the walls for a moment, it usually comes crashing down.

All children believe that the world begins with their birth. But to be an adult was to acknowledge the endless circles of life that began before one’s time and would continue long after, to realize that one’s story was shaped and written by unknown others. His own history had begun so much earlier than his actual story began.

Remy learned his first lessons in loss: That his sorrow was in proportion to the happiness he’d felt earlier in the evening. That you only miss what you value.

Shirin realized something: that without knowing it, she had joined the ranks of the world’s shunned and neglected, the invisible and unseen. If they couldn’t see past Cyloo’s deformities to his spirit, to his soul, then she was happy to relinquish her membership in such a superficial society. By treating her son as less than human, they had diminished their own humanity.

was the bitterest of life lessons—the realization that you cannot force someone to love what you do.

Why did human beings need to invent heaven and hell? Remy wondered. It was all here on Earth: The stars and the gutter, paradise and inferno. All the contradictions of the world embodied in every single human being.

“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

He had come to India to find a child. Instead, he had regained a mother.

This was how destiny was formed, Remy decided, not by what was written in the stars by some distant god, but by human choice and effort and courage. All he had to do was be brave.