Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

“Why would I care? They’re all identical. They all can suck my dick. And I mean that literally. You have to make whatever programming language you use suck your dick. It needs to serve you.” Dov looked over at Hannah. “You don’t have a dick, so clit, whatever. Pick the programming language that is going to make you come.”

But for Marx, the world was like a breakfast at a five-star hotel in an Asian country—the abundance of it was almost overwhelming. Who wouldn’t want a pineapple smoothie, a roast pork bun, an omelet, pickled vegetables, sushi, and a green-tea-flavored croissant? They were all there for the taking and delicious, in their own way.

“Hi,” Sam said, without looking at her. “You can watch if you want. I’m going to play until the end of this life.” “That’s a good philosophy,” Anna said.

“Will she be okay?” Sam said. “I think so,” Anna said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She would be okay. Dead was okay.

“Real men wear at least three different kinds of dead animals.” “Gross,” Sadie said.

“You know the best thing about Donkey Kong?” Sadie asked. “That it’s named for the villain? The innovative use of barrels as weapons?” “The necktie,” she said. “It’s brilliant design. Without it, the question of his dick would always be hanging out there.” “Literally.”

Memory, you realized long ago, is a game that a healthy-brained person can play all the time, and the game of memory is won or lost on one criterion: Do you leave the formation of memories to happenstance, or do you decide to remember?

“I don’t see myself being someone’s wife,” she said. “You wouldn’t be a wife. I’d be your husband,” you said.

You couldn’t be old and still be wrong about as many things as she’d been wrong about, and it was a kind of immaturity to call yourself old before you were.

“Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.” “That’s a game character’s life, too,” Sam said. “The world of infinite restarts. Start again at the beginning, this time you might win.