The Shards

by Bret Easton Ellis

I never moved through life again unaffected by the trauma this caused, everything changed because of it, and, even more painfully, I realized—and this was the truer, starker loss—that there was nothing I could do.

I tried to transform into the tangible participant and smiled.

The day really became effortless once you faked it and it actually became more real because of your changed demeanor; the act became the reality and it affected everything in what seemed like a positive way. In fact, it was preferable to reality.

Something cracked open within me that could never be sealed again.

I didn’t know what to say anymore, because there was nothing else to say—nothing registered with him, it was like talking into a mirror.

“I guess she was traumatized and saw…things everywhere for a while, signs and signals, and she became paranoid…Everything was an…omen, a reminder,”