The Library at Mount Char

by Scott Hawkins

Carolyn rose and stood alone in the dark, both in that moment and ever after.

Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” “Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying.”

“That’s the risk in working to be a dangerous person,” she said. “There’s always the chance you’ll run into someone who’s better at it than you.”

No real thing can be so perfect as memory, and she will need a perfect thing if she is to survive. She will warm herself on the memory of you when there is nothing else, and be sustained.”

Some people have an enormous capacity for feeling guilt, deserved or otherwise.

Then, from the stainless-steel toilet, a man’s voice. “Sheee would not. Carolyn like you.” “What the fuck?”

I love lines like this