Super Sad True Love Story

by Gary Shteyngart

Oh, dear diary. My youth has passed, but the wisdom of age hardly beckons.

The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons—it was systemic and it was complete.

but seeing her reminded me of approaching a reassembled piece of Greek or Roman pottery. You had to draw out the beauty and

elegance of the design, but your eyes kept returning to the seams and the cracks filled with some dark cohesive substance, the missing handles and random pockmarks.

which made Eunice exhale in such a sad, hurt, elongated, final way, it made me wonder if she would ever be capable of replacing that breath.