Death in Her Hands

by Ottessa Moshfegh

Even just the slightest seed of life, a fertilized egg, took payment, an expert, a machine, and an industrial vacuum, I’d heard. Life was persistent. There it was, every day. Each morning it woke me up. It was loud and brash. A bully. A lounge singer in a garish sequin dress. A runaway truck. A jackhammer. A brush fire. A canker sore. Death was different. It was tender, a mystery. What was it, even? Why did anybody have to die? Walter, the Jews, how many innocent children . . . my thoughts lost their train. How did people go on with their lives as though death weren’t all around them? There were theories—heaven, hell, rebirth, and so forth. But did anybody really know? Was there an answer? How unfair it seemed to send the living off into death, into the unknown, so cold.