Tenth of December

by George Saunders

“Jeff,” Abnesti said. “I know you’ve done a lot of work on this with Mrs. Lacey. On killing and so forth. But this is not you. This is us.” “It’s not even us,” Verlaine said. “It’s science.” “The mandates of science,” Abnesti said. “Plus the dictates.” “Sometimes science sucks,” Verlaine said. “On the one hand, Jeff,” Abnesti said, “a few minutes of unpleasantness for Heather—” “Rachel,” Verlaine said. “A few minutes of unpleasantness for Rachel,” Abnesti said, “years of relief for literally tens of thousands of underloving or overloving folks.” “Do the math, Jeff,” Verlaine said. “Being good in small ways is easy,” Abnesti said. “Doing the huge good things, that’s harder.”