Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

I couldn’t explain to her that I missed him more, more than she or anyone else missed him, because I couldn’t tell her about what happened with the phone. That secret was a hole in the middle of me that every happy thing fell into.

An ambulance drove down the street between us, and I imagined who it was carrying, and what had happened to him. Did he break an ankle attempting a hard trick on his skateboard? Or maybe he was dying from third-degree burns on ninety percent of his body? Was there any chance that I knew him? Did anyone see the ambulance and wonder if it was me inside? What about a device that knew everyone you knew? So when an ambulance went down the street, a big sign on the roof could flash DON’T WORRY! DON’T WORRY! if the sick person’s device didn’t detect the device of someone he knew nearby. and if the device did detect the device of someone he knew, the ambulance could flash the name of the person in the ambulance, and either IT’S NOTHING MAJOR! IT’S NOTHING MAJOR! or, if it was something major, IT’S MAJOR! IT’S MAJOR! And maybe you could rate the people you knew by how much you loved them, so if the device of the person in the ambulance detected the device of the person he loved the most, or the person who loved him the most, and the person in the ambulance was really badly hurt, and might even die, the ambulance could flash GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! One thing that’s nice to think about is someone who was the first person on lots of people’s lists, so that when he was dying, and his ambulance went down the streets to the hospital, the whole time it would flash GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!

10. Walt 9. Lindy 8. Alicia Grandma said, “I hope you never love anything as much as I love you. Over.” 7. Farley 6. The Minch / Toothpaste (tied) 5. Stan I could hear her kissing her fingers and then blowing. 4. Buckminster 3. Mom I blew her a kiss back. 2. Grandma “Over and out,” one of us said. 1. Dad

like to see people reunited, maybe that’s a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can’t tell fast enough, the ears that aren’t big enough, the eyes that can’t take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone,