Fragile

by Lisa Unger

The smell of it made her oddly nostalgic, made her remember the time before she really understood the power of consequence, the fragility of the human body.

You’re everything you need to be, she’d told Britney in a session. It’s enough to just be who you are.

“They say your memory fades when you get older. I wish it were true. You forget things like where you put your keys or your glasses, you space out on doctors’ appointments. But the bad stuff stays, Maggie. The old things you’d rather forget, those memories move closer, grow more vivid.”

As a girl, she just didn’t understand cruelty, didn’t understand why some people felt good about making other people feel bad.

Then, years later, there was a dawning, a slow and terrible dawning that he, too, would die. Even he would one day draw a breath and not release it, or release a breath and not draw another. He would cease to exist, cease to draw the world in through his senses, though it would go on without him. A grim dread, accompanied by a petulant rage, settled on him. It was all so damn fragile. It shouldn’t be. Something so important should be stronger. How were we all supposed to bear it? he wondered. How could anyone really live, knowing that they were going to die? What was the point?

wondering why people held on to anger and sadness, gripped it tight, let it dictate the course of their lives, but found it so hard to find and keep love.