One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories

by B.J. Novak

“I have never understood ‘flourless chocolate cake,’ ” stated the warlord, finally. “Is flour such a bad thing? I mean, compared to the other things in chocolate cake?” “You want to split that?” said Julie. “Flour is probably the least unhealthy thing I can think of in chocolate cake,” the warlord continued. “Is that supposed to be the point? That the whole cake is just all eggs and sugar and butter? And anyway, who cares? It’s chocolate cake. We know it’s not a health food. Use whatever ingredients you want. All it has to do is taste good. We don’t need to know how you did it—just make it.” “You want to maybe split that?” said Julie again. “We will split the flourless chocolate cake,” declared the warlord.

I told him I stopped because I realized I was turning love into an accomplishment, and he was turning accomplishment into love, and neither of those things would ever quite be the other. When I told him that, he seemed to both light up and flare out at the same time—like he knew this was the truth, but that it was also hard for him to let go of someone who would say something like that.

If you love something, let it go. If you don’t love something, definitely let it go. Basically, just drop everything, who cares.

One morning I looked out my window, and I saw a rabbit hop across my back patio. Just hopping through. It entered from one side, then it hopped around a little, then it left out the other side. That was it. I loved it. I wanted it to happen again and again and again.