The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies

by John Langan

“How many people do you suppose exit this world satisfied with what they’ve managed to accomplish in it, Davis? How many of our fellows slipped their mortal coils content with what their eighteen or twenty-one or twenty-seven years had meant?”

The Police Chief has an almost surprisingly forgiving attitude toward such faults. This is because he believes that, at root, human beings are hopelessly corrupt, depraved, every one of us always ready to cross some law or code of behavior should the opportunity present itself. The Police Chief does not understand why humanity is this way; he just knows it is.

No, what grinds you down are the little things, the hundred daily failings you witness in yourself and in others, the pettiness, the spite, the jealousy, the dull, stupid meanness in people.