Remarkably Bright Creatures

by Shelby Van Pelt

How shall you refer to me, you ask? Well, that is up to you. Perhaps you will default to calling me that guy, like the rest of them. I hope not, but I will not hold it against you. You are only human, after all.

She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe.

The Knit-Wits have been her friends for years, and sometimes she still feels as if she’s a mistaken jigsaw piece who found her way into the wrong puzzle.

Tova wonders sometimes if it’s better that way, to have one’s tragedies clustered together, to make good use of the existing rawness. Get it over with in one shot. Tova knew there was a bottom to those depths of despair. Once your soul was soaked through with grief, any more simply ran off, overflowed, the way maple syrup on Saturday-morning pancakes always cascaded onto the table whenever Erik was allowed to pour it himself.

With the bucket comes a sensation of total nothingness, which, in most ways, is more pleasant than the everything-ness.

Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.