The Emperor of Gladness

by Ocean Vuong

“You wanna be a writer and you want to jump off a bridge? That’s pretty much the same thing, no? A writer just takes longer to hit the water.”

Every generation says this of itself, but these were indeed bewildering times he lived in, a time before iPhones were everywhere, and people still looked up as they walked, their heads filled with self-generated thoughts floating up from deep pits in the subconscious.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Because to remember is to fill the present with the past, which meant that the cost of remembering anything, anything at all, is life itself. We murder ourselves, he thought, by remembering.

“Words cast spells. You should know this as a writer. That’s why it’s called spelling, Labas.”