Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

she had not insisted he tell his sad stories to satisfy her own curiosity.

He was already imagining Sam-and-Sadie lore,

he had learned to tolerate the sometimes-painful present by living in the future.

There is a time for any fledgling artist where one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities. The only way to get through this period is to make things anyway.

Beauty, after all, is almost always a matter of angles and resolve.

The universe, he felt, was just—or if not just, fair enough. It might take your mother, but it might give you someone else in return.

They had been worried about him, and they had wanted to make his life easier. And so they invented reasons—some of them even compelling and real. And they had not done this for the game or the company, but because they loved him, and they were his friends. And he felt grateful.

There are, he determines, infinite ways his mother doesn’t die that night and only one way she does.

“You go back to work. You take advantage of the quiet time that a failure allows you. You remind yourself that no one is paying any attention to you and it’s a perfect time for you to sit down in front of your computer and make another game. You try again. You fail better.”