Where Reasons End

by Yiyun Li

But I wondered if he would say something clever, that people’s sympathy and callousness are like two hands wringing over someone else’s disaster.

Who can say to love doesn’t also mean to disappoint and to deceive? I said.

The line between self-deception and willpower is often blurred, I said.

But it’s true, he said now. Perfection is my only way of living. Then the button came undone, and the coat was no longer new.

The world never tires of dimming the bright and blunting the sharp, I said. It’s good to avoid suffering when one can.

What, my child, can I catch now, when all has become invisible?

A noun is a wall, an adjective is a window.

Are some days more special than others, or are we giving them names and granting them meaning because days are indifferent, and we try to wrangle a little love out of them as we tend to do with uncaring people?

And who, my dear child, has taken the word lovable out of your dictionary and mine, and replaced it with perfect?