Cold Enough for Snow

by Jessica Au

Back then, I had wanted every moment to count for something; I had become addicted to the tearing of my thoughts, that rent in the fabric of the atmosphere. If nothing seemed to be working toward this effect, I grew impatient, bored. Much later, I realized how insufferable this was: the need to make every moment pointed, to read meaning into everything.

The best we could do in this life was to pass through it, like smoke through the branches, suffering, until we either reached a state of nothingness, or else suffered elsewhere.

I had one vague, exhausted thought that perhaps it was all right not to understand all things, but simply to see and hold them.