The Mars Room

by Rachel Kushner

such an elusive thing. A man could say every day that he wanted to change his life, was going to change it, and every day the lament became merely a part of the life he was already living, so that the desire for change was in fact a kind of stasis that allowed the unchanged life to continue, because at least the man knew to disapprove of it, which reassured him not all was lost.

Gordon’s new neighbors were all white, Christian, and conservative. People who tinkered with trucks and dirt bikes and made assumptions of Gordon that he did nothing to dispel, because he knew those assumptions would work in his favor if he needed their help.

It’s because you cannot help but think of the life you once had, or did not have. Holidays are an idea of how life should be.

an experience that, like everything in life, made sense in its moment.

They were men of zero words to anyone, ever. They were men who lay watching TV, making women and children feel skittish and in trouble for existing.

I felt I was going down into a solitude that was too airy and roomy.

and had little tendency toward destructive introspection.

be faced with what I did not like to admit, which was that Jimmy Darling was free of worry, and he had a place in the world. He was a somebody. Take the inverse of that, and it was how I felt about myself.

It was probably an improvident time to quit a job, with the economy tanking, but the rhythms of the world did not always coordinate with the rhythm of the person.

Then the three of us were walking together along a sea wall or embankment. It was Ocean Beach. Huge waves swelled and fell, as if the water were at an incline, not level. It was steep water. The man started going out onto the embankment.

All the talk of regret. They make you form your life around one thing, the thing you did, and you have to grow yourself from what cannot be undone: they want you to make something from nothing. They make you hate them and yourself. They make it seem that they are the world, and you’ve betrayed it, them, but the world is so much bigger.

He is on his path as I am on mine. The world has gone on for a long, long time. I gave him life. It is quite a lot to give. It is the opposite of nothing. And the opposite of nothing is not something. It is everything.