Head Like a Hole

by Andrew Van Wey

Sometimes she wishes she could call them. To ask them questions and gather advice. To commiserate with them on days when things fall apart. And to tell them she’s sorry; she understands it now. Parents aren’t perfect, but they do what they can.

Maybe that’s what immortality is: remembering the tastes of your youth while feeding your children.

People want to be heard, especially when they’ve been misheard, misquoted, and misunderstood. It’s why we relive old arguments in the shower until we’ve won.

“No. It’s not my story, but I’ll tell it if that’s what you want. It’s hers. And it’s a love story.”

Perhaps therapy made men uncomfortable. So much else about women did.

The sea had grown through her. Or maybe, he sensed, she’d grown into the sea.

Was this how madness happened? First slowly and then all at once?

business might start in an office or a conference room, but it was usually sealed over drinks.

Desiree was a Scorpio, which meant that she was passionate and assertive and full of ambition. It also meant she could blame any mistakes on the alignment of some stars.

“For a stoner, you have the memory of the FBI.” “Word.”

It was different for guys. Sure, they had reputations, but they could shed them like old clothes over the summer and become something new. Women had labels that stuck.

“Happy? Life isn’t Barney & Friends. I mean, who’s really happy? But she’s alive, right? That’s good enough.”

She was starting to understand the truth of it all: most friends didn’t grow older and closer. They simply grew apart.

That’s the power of memory, he supposes. Every one is unique, carved into neurons and strengthened through emotions and senses. It’s why so many adults never move past the music of their youth.

I like to think we’re the sum total of all those who helped us or hurt us or simply shared our life for a moment.

You’re more skilled with a brush than many of the artists on these walls. But tell me, what do you see in these paintings? What do you feel?” Megan swallowed. “I see bravery.” “Yes, precisely. They are brave. We must be fearless, as artists. We must confront what truly scares us.”

But greatness only comes from the balance of the eye and the heart. Unless you can be honest with yourself, unless you can be brave and take risks, then I’m afraid there’s little any of us can do for your journey.”

pluperfect

what a fascinating word

Which was how he felt now. No idea. Just the fog of war and a feeling that he was missing a bigger picture.

“You know how you get a bill you can’t pay so you just keep ignoring it? And the fees and interest build up? I’ve been doing that for two and a half years.

Ok but same though

“How’d you know I’m a cop?” She blinked at him. “You walk with purpose. No one walks like that unless they’re a cop or they’re going to rob us.”

Copaganda but also not

It was a stretch, but then again, so was the thought of Louis eating his neighbor’s dog. It’d been a weird couple of days.

“Book of Revelations, hello.” She tapped her fingers on the counter. “The name of the fallen star is Wormwood.”

Sometimes you just had to shut up and help out in this world.

A bit melodramatic, wasn’t it? But then again, she remembered her high school days: every kiss was desperate and passionate, each moment the most meaningful ever. Life’s volume, turned up to the max. It was exhausting and she was glad those years were behind her.

Here, she could burn off the past. Here, she could reach for the future. And if she pushed herself hard enough, she could become someone new.

Weed was meant for good times, and good times were better when shared.

amen

“I think all people worry. Especially caretakers of daughters, yes? It is, how do you say? Instinctual. Like, is in DNA.”

“I’ve been tuned in since it started. Much more interesting than looking at dead bodies, I’ll tell you.” “I’ll take your stiffs over reporters any day,” Graham said and put on a pair of latex gloves. “They’re better behaved.” The medical examiner chuckled and opened the cadaver shelf. “God help us if that changes.”

“And that’s why they won, son. Never pick a fight with an enemy you don’t understand.”

“A wise man once said, ‘Chaos is a friend of mine.’” “Dostoevsky?” “Bob Dylan.”

A group only had the IQ of its dumbest member.

Graham knew the look in their eyes. The distant stare, numb detachment. They were shellshocked and still processing what they’d witnessed, each waging their own internal battles. With what they didn’t know, what they did, and what they were all keeping from each other.

Coincidences might be twins but they’re never triplets.

“Mugwort,” Detective Nolan said. “Like wormwood, the plant?” “Yes,” Petro said. “That’s what Chernobyl means, wormwood.”

it’s…Chernobyl???

Even experts don’t have all the answers.”

“She is not a girl. She is the sum of many experiences and memories, a collective of all that she’s encountered. She doesn’t just regenerate; she integrates and assimilates.”

Front-load the human mind with the improbable and we reject it. Our mental defenses, they keep reality balanced.

“And no, I didn’t believe him. Not entirely. But I didn’t believe myself either. Memories are fallible.” “Yeah, but even a lie points the way to a truth. Or someone’s version of it.”

“The deepest bonds are elemental, built upon the friction of opposition. Water and fire, night and day, life and death. The transition from adolescence to adulthood lives at this nexus. It’s why you remember the chapped lips of your first kiss and the songs of the summer. Why true awe is your first trip to Fenway Park, with your friends. And why nothing ever tastes as delicious as that hotdog they bought you.”

No, she hadn’t been brave then, and she was still tiptoeing now. Yes, she was doing this wrong. She was still seeing with her eyes and thinking with her mind but not feeling with her heart. The only time she was truly happy, truly connected to something else, was when she was creating her art.

“It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” “No, it doesn’t,” he said. “But you learn how to take a few of the hits.”

There was no candy in that yawning crevice above those splendid breasts.

THIS SENTENCE IS INSANE

“Being a parent is hard. You learn as you go.” “Yeah, well, being young isn’t much easier.”

“New money shouts, but old money whispers.”

Jesus had been wrong. It wasn’t the meek that were blessed; it was the ignorant.

“Do you know what it’s like to have nothing? To be reduced to the barest scrap of existence? To eat desperation? Of course not. You and your friends, you whine about hardships, but you’ve never tasted misery. You’re a tourist to suffering.”

Beneath the fury, she was wounded and angry. At surviving. At being trapped. At being alone and abandoned. If she was wounded, it meant she could be hurt. And if she was angry, she could be tricked.