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I still think that everyone’s life, no matter how unremarkable, has a singular tragic encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. That moment is the catalyst—the first step in the equation. But knowing the first step will get you nowhere—it’s what comes after that determines the result.
I wasn’t exactly crying, but it hurt like hell to swallow.
It was like the part of me that had enjoyed those friends had evaporated, leaving behind a huge, echoing emptiness, and I was scrabbling on the edge of it, trying not to fall into the hole within myself because I was terrified to find out how far down it went.
He’s one of those buddy-buddy corporate lawyers who donates a mint to his old college fraternity. Booming laugh, always smells like Listerine, played tennis once, plays golf now. You know the type.
“That pause in conversation when you’re about to introduce someone but you’ve forgotten their name. There’s a word for it. In Scotland, it’s called a tartle.”
Words could betray you if you chose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many.
maddening little smile sometimes, like you’ve just thought of something incredibly witty but are afraid to say it in case no one gets the joke.”
She was achingly effortless, and she would never, in a million years, choose me. But, for the next few minutes, I contented myself with the magnificent possibility that she might.
“Well, Mr. Illiterate Jock, let me enlighten you. There was this philosopher-slash-historian called Foucault, who wrote about how society is like this legendary prison called the panopticon. In the panopticon, you might be under constant observation, except you can never be sure whether someone is watching or not, so you wind up following the rules anyway.”
‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do/With your one wild and precious life?’”
“You’ll never escape the panopticon thinking like that.”
As always, she left me wanting more, and dreaming of what it would be like if I ever got it.
She tasted like buried treasure and swing sets and coffee. She tasted the way fireworks felt, like something you could get close to but never really have just for yourself.
