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the flipside of contentment is stagnation.
she cannot change minds as willfully opaque as a black marble floor. They will only reflect what’s already there. False light and ancient bones.
There was a superstition in the colony. When shipping season came to an end, you weren’t supposed to watch the last ship leave. It supposedly came from an old maritime belief that it was bad luck to say goodbye to anyone on a ship about to set sail—which is why people generally say “farewell,” or “bon voyage.”
Carson had never experienced death before. They say everyone’s experience was unique. But how do you experience a state that, is, by definition, void of somatic sensation?
Do not be afraid of death, Morty once read, for is it not simply the same void from whence we first emerged?
deep down, they knew that even more terrifying than death was the fear of it.
Humanity’s so-called immortality only replaced one impossible question—What do I do with my brief time on Earth?—with another equally impossible one: What do I do with more time than I’ll ever need?
Coming to a museum for answers was like asking a river to hold still for your reflection.
“This painting is literally just a line of instructions,” he said. “Feels a little like a cheat.” “Is it, though? Is a paintbrush a cheat compared to drawing with a twig? Is paint itself a cheat compared to pigments made from blood or berries? You think about cheats hard enough and pretty soon you’ll say the only real way to make art is by dragging your hands through mud.”
“I’m scared, Morty.” It caught him by surprise. “What, you? You’re never scared.” “I’m good at hiding things.” She tightened her lips. “I don’t want to die, Morty.” He swallowed. “You’re not going to die.” She flashed her eyes at the body of Marat. “I don’t want everything to end before I can find something I care about as much as life itself.”
If only he had more time. Is this what life used to be like? Everyone wishing they had just a little more time?
“Art is never finished, merely abandoned,”
“F is for Faraz, my husband,” she said. Then added, “He died.” No one wanted to follow that. Ms. Cappellino sensed their awkward silence. “It was a very long time ago. He suffered from what was called ‘early-onset Alzheimer’s.’ He lost who he was. Became like a stranger, really. So in a way I’d already lost him long before he died.”
If there’s one thing losing my husband taught me, it’s that everything can—and will—change in an instant. People, truths, whole realities. The trick is deciding if a certain change is good, or bad, or some other thing we don’t yet have words for.”
Baroque taught in piercing detail that this world was full of both pain and grandeur. Expressionism painted the inscapes of the human mind, and modern art revealed its absurdity.
