Only the Rain

by Randall Silvis

Personally, I’ve come to believe that theories are of small value when it comes to actually living your life, to making all the hard decisions you have to make and then dealing with the consequences of those decisions.

It’s funny how when bad things start happening in a series, it almost seems as if they’re all related somehow, as if each one is causing the next. I remember you talking about that one time, about what you called your Domino Catastrophe Theory. You said the universe is filled to the brim with bad things waiting to happen, not only the universe of everything but also each one of our own personal universes too. “There’s a 50–50 chance that one fuckup, no matter how small, is going to trigger another one,” you said. “And if that happens, there’s a 70–30 chance that the second one will trigger a total clusterfuck.”

“People don’t have to be perfect for you to love them,” he said. “You understand what I’m saying? Sometimes you love them because they aren’t perfect. You love them for their imperfections . . .