Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

Without looking over at her, he said, “You want to play the rest of this life?” Sadie shook her head. “No. You’re doing really well. I can wait until you’re dead.” The boy nodded. He continued to play, and Sadie continued to watch. “Before. I shouldn’t have said that,” Sadie apologized. “I mean, in case you are actually dying. This being a children’s hospital.” The boy, piloting Mario, climbed up a vine that led to a cloudy, coin-filled area. “This being the world, everyone’s dying,” he said. “True,” Sadie said. “But I’m not currently dying.” “That’s good.” “Are you dying?” the boy asked. “No,” Sadie said. “Not currently.” “What’s wrong with you, then?” “It’s my sister. She’s sick.”

The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people, with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that world, don’t you? I’m terrified of that world, and I don’t want to live in that world, and as a mixed-race person, I literally don’t exist in it.

Sam’s grandfather had two core beliefs: (1) all things were knowable by anyone, and (2) anything was fixable if you took the time to figure out what was broken. Sam believed these things as well.

She had thought after Ichigo that she would never fail again. She had thought she arrived. But life was always arriving. There was always another gate to pass through. (Until, of course, there wasn’t.)

“‘Zweisamkeit’ is the feeling of being alone even when you’re with other people.” Simon turned to look in his husband’s eyes. “Before I met you, I felt this constantly. I felt it with my family, my friends, and every boyfriend I ever had. I felt it so often that I thought this was the nature of living. To be alive was to accept that you were fundamentally alone.” Simon’s eyes were moist. “I know I’m impossible, and I know you don’t care about German words or marriage. All I can say is, I love you and thank you for marrying me anyway.”

“There’s no game without the NPCs,” you tell him. “There’s just some bullshit hero, wandering around with no one to talk to and nothing to do.”