Even Greater Mistakes

by Charlie Jane Anders

Fuck doctors, man,” Julie had spat. “People are going to die no matter what you do. Theatre is important.”)

She was standing in a world of stinky chalk talking to a self-loathing genie. After two years alone in a box, that didn’t even seem weird, really.

“No you don’t, Lord Hairballington. You try that shit, I will cut your fucking tail off.”

Nine times out of ten, pie would have won over fake time travel.

Anyway, after that, Lydia started sticking around for Time Travel Club every week, as a chaser for her twelve-step meeting. It helped get her back on an even keel so she could drive home without shivering so hard she couldn’t see the road.

For one thing, nobody will hire you to launch a satellite unless you’ve already launched a satellite before—it’s like how you can’t get an entry-level job unless you’ve already had work experience.

I worked for a start-up, remember? I’m good at make-believe.”

Then she gives in, and the two of them loudly debate whether the election of 2024 will be rigged, not caring if people stare.

CJA sees the future here.

“Fucking love. It can’t save you from shit. It’s just anesthetic.”

You try having an honest-to-god processing conversation with your adorable boyfriend, who keeps trying to claim he’s a feminist because he’s letting you support him financially. Just try it.

We heard all the voices and drums before we saw the crowd, then there was a spicy smell and we saw people of twenty different genders and religions waving signs and pumping the air and chanting old-school style about what we wanted and when we wanted it.

Coming off the super-cold-relief formula and cognac buzz, I felt a swelling urgency that people should root for me, not just laugh at my highjinks.

“Freudian bullshit. We seek out painful experiences on purpose, so we can numb ourselves, because what we actually want is to return to nothingness.” Brady had a mental image of his hand coming up out of a hanging chair, like a horror movie. “People seek out pain because they’re stupid, though.” That was the thing Brady had left art school understanding: people make complicated pieces of art to explain human behavior, when the real explanation is almost always assholishness.

Sophie kept dropping hints as subtle as dildos,

LMFAO

the emergency in DC had given birth to other emergencies, and now there was a whole emergency extended family.

“It sounds perverted and sick, this whole thing where you make food for strangers and they give you chits for it. Why don’t you just have sex for money, like honest decent people? Never mind, I don’t want to know the answer to that.

<3

“We had enough of other people’s greatness a long time ago,” Sharon said. “You start to realize that ‘something bigger than you are’ is usually just some kind of stupid mass hallucination. Or a giant scam.”

Word

Everybody needs books, Molly figured. No matter where they live, how they love, what they believe, whom they want to kill. We all want books. The moment you start thinking of books as some exclusive club, or the loving of books as a high distinction, then you’re a bad bookseller.