Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

Richard Parker has stayed with me. I’ve never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.

Memory is an ocean and he bobs on its surface.

People move because of the wear and tear of anxiety.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

Richard Parker was so named because of a clerical error.

The hunter, whose name was Richard Parker, picked it up with his bare hands and, remembering how it had rushed to drink in the river, baptized it Thirsty.

All the papers we received with the cub clearly stated that its name was Richard Parker, that the hunter’s first name was Thirsty and that his family name was None Given. Father had had a good chuckle over the mix-up and Richard Parker’s name had stuck.

There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.

Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression.

He didn’t look at me. He ran a hundred yards or so along the shore before turning in. His gait was clumsy and uncoordinated. He fell several times. At the edge of the jungle, he stopped. I was certain he would turn my way. He would look at me. He would flatten his ears. He would growl. In some such way, he would conclude our relationship. He did nothing of the sort. He only looked fixedly into the jungle. Then Richard Parker, companion of my torment, awful, fierce thing that kept me alive, moved forward and disappeared forever from my life.

I was weeping because Richard Parker had left me so unceremoniously.

It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.