Hummingbird Salamander

by Jeff Vandermeer

The face that stares back at you from the mirror later in life is so different than when you’re young. There’s a winnowing away and a shutting down. A sense of something having been taken from you and you don’t know exactly what it is, just that it isn’t there anymore. What opens up to you instead is experience, is cunning, is foreknowledge. Nothing you sought.

“Work toward a better world, but never forget what world you live in.”

that even through the poisoned landscape, we must love it. We must love what has been damaged, because everything has been damaged. And to love the damage is to know you care about that world. That you’re still alive. That the world is alive. How did I not see the damage for so long?

“We’re ghosts trapped in the wreckage of our systems. So why shouldn’t we haunt them? Why should we not avenge ourselves upon them? Why be merciful?”