Status Updates From Ending: A Novel

Enough anger and despair grew in me to smash furniture, to fell trees. But then he looked directly at me and I saw his rage and his sorrow and he saw mine. My arms fluttered open like wings. He moved into them and I embraced him, holding on for dear life.

Madness is even worse than dying for the watchers.

We were all such dreadful and pitiable creatures of this life that I wanted to throw back my head and let out an earth-splitting howl.

His appetites were so huge you could not imagine standing in their way.

I looked across the table at Eddie and saw that his face was ineffably sad, that he grieved in his own way for the ruins and the losses of decision and chance.

What happens to someone's nostalgia when he dies?

In the distance a dog barked a high yipping complaint and I thought that dogs have no foreknowledge of death. If Jay had been a dog he would die anyway, but without dread and without longing.

I sat up gasping, like someone just saved from drowning.

I was used to sleeping alone when I was a child, but then the bed was narrow and chaste and not meant for confrontations.