I'm Thinking of Ending Things

by Iain Reid

“Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”

Everything is impossibly fragile.” “A lot of things are, yeah,” I say. Like everything I’ve been thinking about.

For years, my life has been flat. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I’ve never admitted it before. I’m not depressed, I don’t think. That’s not what I’m saying. Just flat, listless. So much has felt accidental, unnecessary, arbitrary. It’s been lacking a dimension. Something seems to be missing.

How much of you can fall off before something important is lost?

Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.