The God of Endings

by Jacqueline Holland

I either live honestly and alone, or I live in company as a liar.

There’s none can beat as hard as those who beat to save.

“Then all I have of value now are memories. Everything I love is in the past, in my mind. Will he put an end to that? Will he put an end to my mind? My life? If so, I’d welcome him. For once, I’d be grateful.”

I want to forget myself. Where I am. Who I am. What I am. I want time to pass with that strange, nonsensical speed of dreams and total artistic absorption.

it strikes me as fitting that art should cost the artist dearly, that the most beautiful things made by man should also be poisonous. It seems somehow consistent with what I’ve seen of this world and its men.

Painting is a recursive process. You make an attempt, which is almost never it, so you make another attempt right on top of the first. It gets you closer, or it gets you farther. Either way, you attempt again. Somewhere between five and forty attempts, you find it. The shape you were searching for. To get it right the first time would be an incredible fluke, like a hole in one on a golf course; a pat on the back would be in order, but only a fool would approach the next tee expecting such lucky results again. The truth is something you work your way steadily toward through trial and error. Mostly error. To be too lucky too often would be to lose the joy of the work. Nothing but holes in one would make for a very boring golf game.

“Of course I still love her,” he said. “If I did not still love her, it would mean that I had never loved her. Love—real love—cannot stop. It is one of the few things in this world that has no end.”

To be caught abusing the trust of generous people who have shown you great kindness is the most inexcusable betrayal of all.