The Shards

by Bret Easton Ellis

I suddenly thought again: as a writer, you’re always hearing things that aren’t there.

the eradication of my real self into the tangible participant who saw everything as normal.

And I just stood there in the fading afternoon light, realizing at seventeen that I was already staring into my past—that the past had a meaning that would always define you.

That was all. No one else knew about it. No one cared.

I wanted to write like this as well: numbness as a feeling, numbness as a motivation, numbness as the reason to exist, numbness as ecstasy.

I found myself fighting that particular brand of hopelessness that was again invading the cloud of positivity the tangible participant was trying to float within. Why are you so upset? the tangible participant asked. What is so upsetting? it asked. None of this is real.