If You Are Lonely and You Know It (Currency)

by Yiyun Li

Gordon liked to feel puzzled by un-pressing matters. They were worthier of his imagination: pressing matters do not allow the luxury of hypothesizing without ever having to come to a conclusion.

You hold on to some things for sentimental reasons, and other things for practical reasons. The same with people—most of them.

Gordon did not consider himself a lonely man, but on those nights when he watched the red-hued calyxes release the white petals that in turn opened and revealed the waxy stamens, each perfect as the next—only on those nights did he feel that perhaps talking to himself and the trees and the flowers and animals was not enough. Had he had someone next to him, watching the same flowers reaching their prime and dying within hours, he might have said things that were interesting enough, lasting enough, to make a difference.