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Do you know what I do? I brush my teeth and think only of brushing my teeth. I replace the air filter and think only of replacing the air filter. I start a conversation with one of the others when I feel lonely, and it helps both of us. This moment, Sully, this is where we must live. We can’t help anyone on Earth by thinking about them.”
We study the universe in order to know, yet in the end the only thing we truly know is that all things end—all but death and time. It’s difficult to be reminded of that”—he patted her hand where it lay on the table—“but it’s harder to forget.”
no end, just this, forever. From here, the idea of Earth seemed like an illusion.
When he considered how long he had been alive, it seemed remarkable how little he had experienced.
As he drifted off he focused on her breath and finally identified the source of the nagging fear that had been plaguing him all this time: love.
His real work was far loftier, but his questions regarding love were not easily answered. He never felt satisfied. And Augustine was accustomed to satisfactory answers,
He was old—wildflowers and gentle breezes would not make him young again.
That he craved connection without understanding how to obtain it; that finding a set of tracks, the merest evidence of another presence, was his idea of company. It went beyond the isolation of his situation, it was a part of him, and she suspected it always had been. Even in crowded rooms, even in busy cities, even in the arms of a lover, he was alone. She recognized it in him because it was in her too.
That tenuous connection with the man in the Arctic, across such an incredible distance, had reminded her that even the fleeting things were worth their weight in sadness. Even a few words could mean something.
