Foe

by Iain Reid

Everything changes. Change is one of the only certainties in life. Human beings progress. We have to. We evolve. We move. We expand. What seems far-fetched and extreme becomes normal and then outdated pretty quickly. We move on to the next thing, the next development, the next frontier. What’s up there, it’s not really another world. It is far away. It’s been beyond our reach for most of our existence. But it’s getting closer all the time. We’re moving it closer. You see?”

There are certain moods, like tonight’s, that remind me how much is beyond my own intentions and desires, how much I can’t control, even within myself. I forget that sometimes. I can fall into the habit of believing I can regulate everything. My hope right now is to sleep, to rest, to recover. But my goal doesn’t matter. What I want is irrelevant.

The privilege of being human is that our brains are big enough to decide the fate of other creatures.

Doesn’t life have to be determined by each individual, and be involved to be legitimate? Doesn’t there have to be an element of challenge and progression?

“Growth and advancement: it’s human nature. It’s always been this way. What’s impossible becomes not only achievable but then is also quickly forgotten when the next impossibility becomes the new pursuit.”

“What if it never comes?” she says. “The storm. The rain. We act like it has to come, like it’s inevitable because it has always come before, but what if a storm doesn’t come this time and things just keep going on and on like this forever? What then? I’m not sure I can keep going on and on like this, even though I’m supposed to. I don’t think I can.”

“Because beauty is fleeting, maybe?” No, I say. It’s the opposite. Beauty isn’t fleeting. Beauty is eternal. But . . . I’m not. I’m fleeting. That’s more the point. His typing stops abruptly.

‘I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy.’ ”