Weather

by Jenny Offill

She used to check in on me sometimes to see if I was still squandering my promise.

It can’t be undone, but it can be recounted.

Later, she starts a conversation based on the idea that we’re living in unprecedented times.

Q: What is the philosophy of late capitalism? A: Two hikers see a hungry bear on the trail ahead of them. One of them takes out his running shoes and puts them on. “You can’t outrun a bear,” the other whispers. “I just have to outrun you,” he says.

I offer her some birthday cake. She goes into the usual bit about temptation and sinfulness and maybe this and maybe that, and we have to go through every station of the fucking cross before she takes a bite of it.

I’m like a woman carrying a full cup into a room of strangers, trying not to spill it.

Once sadness was considered one of the deadly sins, but this was later changed to sloth. (Two strikes then.)

There is a period after every disaster in which people wander around trying to figure out if it is truly a disaster. Disaster psychologists use the term “milling” to describe most people’s default actions when they find themselves in a frightening new situation.

But still, everyone I know is trying to sleep less. Insomnia as a badge of honor. Proof that you are paying attention.

The bus is full. It’s reached that density where being seated feels like a form of guilt.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks me, and the answer, of course, is dentistry, humiliation, scarcity;

In some Zen monasteries, gossip is defined as talking about anything not directly in one’s gaze.