Prosper's Demon

by K.J. Parker

I WOKE TO FIND her lying next to me, quite dead, with her throat torn out. The pillow was shiny and sodden with blood, like low-lying pasture after a week of heavy rain. The taste in my mouth was familiar, revolting, and unmistakable. I spat into my cupped hand: bright red. Oh, for crying out loud, I thought. Here we go again.

And belief, like love and sleep, is something you can’t do anything about. You can’t make it come if you want it, and you can’t make it go if you don’t.

We live in a miserable world, where the best we can honestly hope for is that one empty, meaningless day will follow another without things getting actively worse.

only two things live forever, the instruments of darkness and works of genius.

Which is another way of saying that the greatest force for good in this world is, of course, Art, especially Art filled with high explosives.