French Exit

by Patrick deWitt

“I keep trying to march in time but the drummer’s out to get me.”

Possibly you won’t like to think of your mother as one who lived, but I’ll tell you something: it’s fun to run from one brightly burning disaster to the next.”

Days ticked by, and Malcolm saw that these routines, this schedule, had very little variation; but within its strict narrative there grew smaller stories.

Mme Reynard nodded, then looked inward for a time. “Do you ever feel,” she asked, “that adulthood was thrust upon you at too young an age, and that you are still essentially a child mimicking the behaviors of the adults all around you in hopes they won’t discover the meager contents of your heart?”

And third, three, yes, my life is riddled by clichés, but do you know what a cliché is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”