The Lincoln Highway

by Amor Towles

the wise man tattles on himself.

The funny thing about a picture, thought Woolly, the funny thing about a picture is that while it knows everything that’s happened up

until the moment it’s been taken, it knows absotively nothing about what will happen next. And yet, once the picture has been framed and hung on a wall, what you see when you look at it closely are all the things that were about to happen. All the un-things. The things that were unanticipated. And unintended. And unreversible.