A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot, #2)

by Becky Chambers

“But that’s the point of a shrine, or an idol, or a festival. The gods don’t care. Those things remind us to stop getting lost in everyday bullshit.

Welcome comfort, they reminded themself, rubbing the little pectin-printed bear with their thumb. Without it, you cannot stay strong.

Or maybe it’s just one of those times when they need other people to carry them for a while. That’s okay. Everybody ends up there sometimes.

“I’ve never felt like a problem,” it said. “Not a very good feeling, is it?”

It was always a strange thing, coming home. Coming home meant that you had, at one point, left it and, in doing so, irreversibly changed. How odd, then, to be able to return to a place that would always be anchored in your notion of the past. How could this place still be there, if the you that once lived there no longer existed?

You don’t have to have a reason to be tired. You don’t have to earn rest or comfort. You’re allowed to just be. I say that wherever I go.” They threw a hand toward their wagon, its wooden sides emblazoned with the summer bear. “It’s painted on the side of my home! But I don’t feel like it’s true, for me. I feel like it’s true for everyone else but not me. I feel like I have to do more than that. Like I have a responsibility to do more than that.”

“You see,” it said. “You understand. I wish you didn’t, because I know it means you’re as tangled up as I am, but … I’m grateful that you do.”