The Man Made of Smoke

by Alex North

We can never know the importance of our actions, however small and innocent they might seem. An interaction that, for us, is gone in a heartbeat might be something that another person finds impossible to forget.

We are shaped by our pasts, not defined by them.

What I wanted, I realized, was more of a liminal space. Somewhere I could exist out of time and space for a while, and in which everyone else there had made a silent pact to do the same.

When you’re young, there’s so much time left ahead of you. You can still achieve something. But then suddenly you realize that time is mostly behind you now, and there’s only the fact that you didn’t.

If you let your guard down once, the chances are that you’ll be okay. But if you do it a hundred times, the odds are going to catch up with you eventually. Which to his mind is more than enough reason to keep your guard up the whole time.

“When you’re down about yourself, you think about things to make yourself feel even worse, don’t you? It’s weirdly comfortable to dwell.