You Are Here

by David Nicholls

Private, intimate, a book was something she could pull around and over herself, like a quilt.

Books and reading

Neither young nor old, too late to start again, too early to stop, the future simultaneously a great swathe of time but also not enough.

Aging, time

‘I’ve got that last-day-of-the-holiday feeling. You’re still away but you might as well be at home.’

Vacation

And yet it no longer seemed so important merely to fill the photo frame. The question she needed to ask: Is this someone I’d turn to in a crisis, someone whose memory or image I might summon up when they’re not around? Someone I need? If they came to visit me on my deathbed, would I be pleased, or would I think, What are you doing here?