Ill Will

by Dan Chaon

A certain kind of loneliness magnified inside me. A kind of terrible, unsolvable homesickness—for the home that doesn’t exist. That maybe never even was. But there’s no path back. In a fairy tale, there would be a witch you could make a deal with, the same witch that stole away everyone you loved, and you could ask her: What can I give you to be with them again?

“The worst thing is that he thinks he’s the hero of this story, and he’s never, ever going to find out that he’s actually the bad guy.”

You think about the joy of seeing someone else suffering. It’s sort of like the opposite of grieving.

In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation. —SACHEVERELL SITWELL, For Want of the Golden City