The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

by Laird Barron

The girl was bright and possessed a wry wit. Definitely not a prized combination in anyone under thirty.

Satan no more interferes in any meaningful way than God does. Which is to say, by no discernible measure.”

This good earth buzzes with a black radiation. Honey and milk to certain individuals.”

Idiocy and genius were too often part and parcel of a man.

There were those who believed to speak of a thing was to summon it into the world, to lend it form and substance, to imbue it with power.

And this is Hell, my friends. It will continue and continue unto Eternity, until it becomes something worse. Something worse.”

Loneliness didn’t justify self-destruction. Despair and grief, self-loathing and self-recrimination, failure and desertion…those were justifications.