Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

by Gail Honeyman

They were light brown in the way that a rose is red, or that the sky is blue. They defined what it meant to be light brown.

I saw him bend down to light the cigarette of a woman in a wheelchair—she’d brought her drip out with her, on wheels, so that she could destroy her health at the same time as taxpayers’ money was being used to try and restore it.

He wasn’t using a knife, but held a fork in his right hand like a child or an American. He smiled.

I was curious about something. What, I wondered, was the point of me? I contributed nothing to the world, absolutely nothing, and I took nothing from it either. When I ceased to exist, it would make no material difference to anyone.