Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

I didn’t even believe in God, but my mother did, and a part of me felt compelled to keep the rosary for that reason.

one didn’t take a job working for high class assholes without something to numb the misery of it all.

he was like a politician, in that the more questions you asked, the more diversion he inserted into his responses.

“I don’t like interruptions. This isn’t a fuck around class. Know that I’ve failed more students than I’ve passed.” “With all due respect, I believe that’s the failure of the one teaching.”

“She’s a smart woman, no doubt, but robots have more personality when they speak.”

Remember when I said be audacious? Don’t let a man take away this dream. Do whatever the fuck you gotta do to keep it.”

“He’s a nice person. Genuine.” “I’ve found nice and genuine rarely go hand in hand.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around the odds of it. Fate must’ve hit the crack pipe again, the way it kept reminding me how much of an absolute prick my father had been in life.

Mortui vivos docent. I recognized it from a forensics class I’d taken two semesters ago. The dead teach the living.

Unfortunately, no one gives a fuck about a disease that only affects one in five-hundred-thousand people.”

Candles flickered about the lab, giving off an eerie feel, like something out of a Jekyll and Hyde novel.

I opened the book up to a list of illegible scribbles. “Jesus. Did you have to take a class to write this bad?”

“You owe nothing to your family,” he said abrasively, as if I’d insulted him. “Passions are useless, if we pursue them for others. They become obligations. Undesirable.”

“The mechanisms for achieving your goals are inconsequential, so long as they’re successful.”

That was the shitty thing about being broke, though. Pride was an ever-fading ideal.