We Begin at the End

by Chris Whitaker

“I just wish there was a middle, you know. Because that’s where people live. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing … sink or swim like that. Most people just tread water, and that’s enough. Because when you’re sinking, you’re pulling us down with you.”

None of us are any one thing. We’re just a collection of the best and worst things we’ve done.

An old lady wandered over, smiled wide, liver spots and hanging skin, like the earth was calling the flesh to be buried but her brain was too stubborn to cede it.