imaginarybookquotes

[imaginarybookquotes]

Lost in all these words was the one thing I always wanted to tell you:

I went away because it was the right thing to do. Not charity, not an act of penance, not an attempt to balance any scales. Just what was right.

I hope once I’m far enough away, far past any horizons and eclipses, maybe someday that’ll come into view.

[imaginarybookquotes]

“People, in real life

Talk like the people on TV

Because the people in real life

Learned how to talk

From watching the people on TV

And the people on TV

Read words

That the people in real life

Wrote

So that the people on TV could say them

So the people in real life could hear them

To write

For the people on TV to say

��Don’t say that. You sound fake.”

End transmission.”

- Nemens, et al., “Ouroboros, A Linguistic Post-Industrial Psychosis: Memories and Reflections”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“You began AS nothing, not WITH it.”

“…I’m sorry?”

“You’ve separated yourself from nothing. Created a hall of mirrors that is covering you in bruises and cuts because you keep running into yourself over and over again. Let it go. Let it slide.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about but fuck off. Leave me alone.”

“That’s my point is that you already are. You’ve never not been. We fool ourselves into thinking there’s a self, then another somehow separate other entire ‘self’ outside of this preposterous enough original, inviolable self that can somehow come into contact with or avoid it, when it’s just us beating our heads against the wall over and over, as if anyone was listening.”

“Go away.”

“I cant. Don’t you think I’ve tried that?”

start over.

“Listen to me.”

“…excuse me?”

“This is going to make sense. Have you ever thought about what the back of your head looks like? Like, from somebody else’s perspective?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Fuck off.”

“No, listen. Imagine if you could see yourself but outside you, if you could see that there wasn’t a you because you could see the back of your head without a mirror or a camera. Like your vision existed without your body.”

“Stop talking to me.”

“I can’t. There isn’t anyone else.”

try again.

“Hi.”

“…hi, can I help you?”

“You may be able to help both of us. Please give me a moment to explain.”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m not interested. I have to go.”

“…ok, I’m sorry. Please have a nice day.”

“Don’t ever speak to me again.”

“…”

- “Trapper Keeper,” P. Stone

[imaginarybookquotes]

“How much time of the way we talk linear isn’t confusing before we give up and I’m sorry make sense doesn’t we walk away after you’ve said enough to don’t worry about yesterday and mean whatever say things to have something to forget what meant hello when nothing happened and we were new goodbye”

- Multiple Authors, “Aerophagia”

[imaginarybookquotes]

The next billboard is the one. It’s the one that’ll have the gas station behind it where you can finally go to the bathroom. It’s the one that’ll have a barn full of the most interesting assortment of mummified cryptid skeletons anyone’s ever seen in their entire lives. It’ll have that illusory feeling of safety that only a little kid buys into when an adult holds their hand.

Don’t think about the last one. The one with the indescribably flat pancakes and the gas that’s making your car sound like a washing machine with a brick thrown in it. Just think about driving. Picture the road as an ocean. You sink, eventually. Everyone does, whether it’s in the earth or the water. But you sailed. Somehow, somewhere, for whatever ill-conceived reason…

you fucking sailed.

- T.E. Fain, “Sharks, and Providing Emptiness”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“When the wind stops calling, when the wolf leaves your door, when the ghosts you set aside stop coming back for you... that’s how you’ll know it’s over. Never fear anything. But if you absolutely have to... fear that. Fear that moment.”

- Frances Considine, “Emeralds”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“I’ll ask one more time, and then I think we’re done with the questioning, for now.”

“...”

“Let’s go over what you saw again. For the record.”

“...”

“Gentlemen, I think it’s clear he has nothing left to s-“

“Little crocus flowers.

They grew up by the side of the house, every year. Never planted, never cultivated, through piles of leaves or scrap wood or forgotten bicycles. They were always there, every year. Bright, rude shades of purple, stood out like sore thumbs, bore promise. Some kind of regrowth. Renewal. Somehow always at the wrong time of year. Spring never felt like spring.

Then we paved the driveway all the way back to the garage; empty, near collapse, filled with old pieces of sculpted, visually jarring art. The bamboo had always been confined to the backyard, until we paved. It was almost like the ground was offended we deigned to attempt to cover it in a few inches of meager asphalt. It started to split around the edges at first, then the little shoots were everywhere, making a mockery of our attempt to cover it. Calling out the lie. That we could make our little corner of the world fit the model of suffocating, washed out, non-colors that seemed so, so... everywhere. So all around us.

There was nothing I didn’t already know, there. We weren’t right. We didn’t fit. Simple, sometimes, how nature sends you a message. You wouldn’t think choking plants all around you could have a purpose, a point. It didn’t make sense, and that didn’t make sense, but. We didn’t make sense. There was no more point to any of them being there then there was us being there.”

“You saw yourself like the plants. You’re saying you were like the plants.”

“This isn’t material to the mat-“

“Yeah, no, we weren’t fucking plants. You’re not listening. Which is fine - I wasn’t either. We weren’t. There’s such a thing as being too close to something to be able to see it. We were preoccupied. Isn’t everyone? Nature has its own language, and we all sort of hover between being able to hear it and completely forgetting it’s a thing. It was trying to tell us something obvious, something inescapable. Just... go. It was telling us to go.”

“And what did you do because of that? If you can tell us plainly, we can move forward with-“

“This interview is over. We’re not answering any more-“

“I didn’t “do” anything because of that.

I just went. There wasn’t anything else to do. There hasn’t been, and won’t be.

What would you do, after you went, that would matter, if all you had ever, could ever think to do, was go?”

They cut down all the flowers in the yard. Burned the bamboo. Eventually it didn’t grow back. Pour enough chemicals, enough poison into the earth and eventually even it stops speaking to you. Say a prayer for the ones who never knew they were consigned to filling up an impossible silence, one created before they knew there was such a thing as sound.

It will find you.

-J. Braithwaite, “Rode Behind”

[imaginarybookquotes]

F: But were it a lie, I’d speak to you simply:

Man, an animal, an anomaly, is driven by its own desires

A driver on a passengerless road

Speaking to no one

Believing everything. We are but that plain.

M: And if it were?

What then, your suggestions

An unquestioning wind

Blowing in a harder breeze

To do what? Shake us through fear into honesty?

What would those words reveal?

F: Reveal and conceal are borne of the same hand, both a gesture

Of knowing; rather

The presumption of knowledge

Passed between strangers

On a longer journey than either cares to take.

M: Ring, ring like some bell whose tune, ever clarion

Only ever sings soldiers, sailors

To their rest. And what are you,

Suzanne, holding the mirror?

F: I am never but a thought, so;

Away. Away now with you, and without.

Without us all.

My words mean less by the breath.

F Exits. M remains on stage. R enters from left.

M: Comfort be to us so kind,

Whose luxury is maskd and revealed

But whose souls hang ever balanced

Between the known

And the real.

R: And of your man, exeunt

Let not a moment slip

Where a name’s any other

Than a distant whisper

On a departing ship.

- Ari Czelovic, “Frederique et Margerie”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“You’re only ever adrift on a giant ocean, whose tides and swells could never regard you any more than if you’d never existed in the first place. We are all brought to humble by the movement of the water, and the air that separates us from deep, frozen space, eclipsing anything larger than we can even dream.”

- Sorentine Hazel, “Nine More Minutes”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“There’s a very specific pain that doesn’t “hurt” in the conventional sense at all - I mean, it does, it has to for the word to be applicable, but it feels more like the first big plunge on a rollercoaster, like whatever what’s inside of you was standing on has been removed immediately, and everything inside of you just... drops. Like the ground just went away, in the blink of an eye, and you didn’t even have time to process it before you were falling, before whatever that thing is inside of you, your heart, your soul, your inner self (if you put any stock in those concepts - I just tend to think of it as “that thing”) began to plummet towards some horrible, unknown depth.

It usually comes with no warning, and lasts however long it lasts, there’s really no telling, and it’s not so much that the feeling “stops” or “fades” after whatever amount of time has passed as much as it just... isn’t directly above you any more, like a hurricane or a tornado. They don’t “stop” being hurricanes or tornados when they move from over your head. They just move away and start destroying some other part of you instead. But you never for a second let yourself believe they’re not coming back; at least, you shouldn’t.”

- Jennifer Stack, “Plains States”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“You are a burden on those around you. People look at the periods of time you haven’t contacted them as a fucking relief. Bloviating is not now, nor has it ever been, a viable substitute for engagement and conversation. Even that would be forgivable, though. What really makes you a drag is how you’re always sad. Just, unrelentingly, pointlessly so. What on earth ever made you think people would be interested in dealing with that all the time? How often do you expect people to be enthusiastic about communicating with someone who not only cannot avoid finding something bad to say about every situation, but is blatantly self-absorbed enough to always find SOME way to tie it in to THEIR own personal, specific, individual, “special” fucking pain. You cannot seriously think that’s a good thing, or that it ever helps anybody, including you. Fuck, I’d be shocked to learn that nobody ever regarded your sheer presence alone as enough of an anathema to the idea of actually enjoying their lives just on its own, before you could even manage to open your almost-never-closed mouth in the first fucking place.

You are sad. I don’t mean that in terms of mood, either. Think of it like being “sorry.” We’re all capable of being sorry in the moment, but you’re a different kind of “sorry” entirely, one that has nothing to do with your state of mind at any given time. You are literally just a sad, sorry person. Or an excuse for one, if you really need me to put a fine point on it. The most generous thing you’ve managed to do for people over the course of your fucking misguided life is leave them alone after a while - often, when they offer you no other choice, before this starts to sound fucking altruistic on your part. It’s not. Because you’re not fundamentally capable of that. It’s not that you can’t think of what effect your decisions might have on people around you, people who you claim to value, to value their state of mind and their well being and all that other high minded bullshit you learned to parrot without ever actually internalizing... it’s that you will never, not ever, not once in your life, think of that first. You’re just not capable of that. The next time you look around and don’t see anyone... try and remember this. Try and remember what I’m saying right now. But, don’t worry if you can’t, or don’t, or won’t just because you don’t want to in that particular moment... I promise you I will be right there to remind you. Because unlike all the rest of them, you cannot get rid of me. Welcome to it. Let’s get comfortable.”

- V. O. Rose, “It Is Decided”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“Knowledge, like power, isn’t an end unto itself. It’s what you do with it that’s significant. I’ll give you an example. Find something live on tv real quick.”

“Like what? A baseball game or something?”

“Doesn’t matter. Something smaller would be good. Local news?”

It was about a quarter after six, just in time for “Weather on the 7s” on one of the local affiliates. I grabbed the remote from the far end of the bar and switched it over. Rich Chinnels (unbelievably, his birth name - some people really are BORN to do certain jobs, I suppose) was in the middle of giving a run down of the three day forecast from the Channel 7 Weather Outlook station on the roof of the building; all bronzer, and big, almost threatening teeth, looking for all the world like a particularly jocular marine predator of some variety. Business as usual.

The man at the bar took the glass of water sitting next to his whiskey and in one smooth motion, with an underhand toss, pitched its contents directly at the tv mounted on the wall. Before I could even react, or formulate the sentence “what the fuck are you doing, that’s going to short out the tv and I’d rather not have the $2400 taken out of my paycheck for the next six months,” good ol’ Chinnels was getting doused by what looked to be roughly the equivalent of a bucket full of water in mid-sentence, out of nowhere. It stopped him dead in his tracks, completely at a loss for words, sputtering for a second or two before they cut back to the studio and the other talking heads dove straight into patter about their plans for the weekend like nothing untoward had just happened. If Rich Chinnels was stunned into silence by the unexpected development, I was right there with him - the main difference being I wasn’t soaking wet. I looked over at the man at the bar, who looked in no mood whatsoever to coddle my goggle-eyed disbelief at what I’d just seen.

“Now. Someone sees something like that, their first question is usually ‘how did you do that, can you teach me to do that, etc etc’ which is fine, it’s perfectly reasonable. But if you just move your thinking ahead, just by a little, just a nudge, isn’t the far more interesting question ‘if you have whatever power or knowledge enables you to do things like that, why are you wasting your time soaking unsuspecting local meteorologists instead of doing something that actually matters,’ or something along those lines?”

It took me a second, but I caught up with his line of thinking as fast as I could manage. “Ok, ok, I think I get it. Even if what one person knows how to do or has the power to do isn’t quite as - unexpected - as what you just did, that’s irrelevant - the principle is still applicable regardless of what the knowledge or power itself actually is or actually contains.”

He cocked his head to the side just slightly and a grin began to spread from one ear towards the next. He downed the rest of the whiskey as he rose, and slapped a hundred dollar bill on the bar. “My dear boy, your little leap of reasoning right there has made my day, and in almost every way proven to be even more of a surprise to me than I imagine my little parlor trick was for you. You have my sincere thanks.” And with that, he gathered himself and headed for the door.

I’d be lying if I said almost every part of me didn’t want to stop him, keep him there and make him share what he knew that allowed him to do what he’d just done. It was nearly all I could think of. Nearly. What kept me from doing it? I think he would have taken it as an indication that I hadn’t actually learned anything after all, and I think he would have been profoundly disappointed, and for some reason, that mattered to me. I think ultimately, I would have been, too.

Laura Lemire, “A Mile A Minute”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“I got this letter... like, a physical letter, in the mail. I had no idea people still did that. But I guess my address was still floating around out there somewhere, and somehow... I mean, I don’t know if any of this was legitimate, but it certainly seemed that way to me... somehow this kid, I guess she’d come across something I wrote, Jesus, must have been a good decade before she was even born, I think she said she was about nine or so, something about life being everywhere, or the world being alive or - god, you know I don’t even actually remember what it was, by now. Isn’t that weird? Anyway, she wrote this really sweet letter, it was like a page and a half long, which for a kid must feel like War and fucking Peace, and just said she really liked whatever the thing was, which, that was nice, but on its own, maybe not super memorable, but she asked me a question at the end, that I’ve never been able to shake. It was real simple. She just said “is there life in all things?” Which at first pass sounds a little too advanced of a thought for a nine year old to have, but also just sort of on the cusp of the kind of thing your mind tries to work through as you’re making the early steps towards what we commonly think of as an “adult’s” understanding of the world, and I found myself completely poleaxed, trying to figure out how to answer that. I wrote her back, and thanked her, said it was really nice to see a young person that was so curious about the world, and that I thought there were a lot of questions people can and should ask that might not even really need answers, just the act of asking is the value, and how always finding new questions to ask is so crucial to continuing to grow and expand our understanding of the world around us... all of which I meant, very much, but inside, I knew it was a dodge. I felt kind of embarrassed, here was this little human who felt so strongly about something, and felt that I might be able to help, and just got back some honest but open ended platitudes, that probably didn’t help her with the issue at hand much at all.”

“Obviously, yeah. Do you still feel like you can’t really answer the question the way you’d like to be able to?”

“Yes and no. How’s that for another dodge? No, because there’s no way to go back and give that nine year old kid what she was looking for, I still don’t think there’s a proper answer for that, or if there is, it should come from someone a lot more confident in the certainty of their views than I am, which is of course the exact kind of person I usually counsel people to avoid at all costs, but also yes. Yes, and it took me so, so long to get to it. But that’s the catch: I still think my answer would only ever make sense to me. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll try and slap a leash on it and take it around the block really quick.”

“Sure, I think we have time.”

“I’ll put that to the test. So. I trust you’re mostly familiar with the Voyager, the probes we sent into outer space? Pretty ancient NASA program, a few years ago they crossed out of the solar system, I believe they were the first man-made things to do so.”

“I remember hearing about that, yeah.”

“Okay. So they’ve been in space since the late seventies, the mission has just gone on and on, and they just get further and further out into space, obviously returning to earth was never part of their parameters, but they have enough power to keep transmitting signals and whatnot, for all these years and across all these distances, a lot of information humanity would otherwise have really no way of directly accessing. Kinda remarkable, y’know? Noble, almost.”

“Sure, you could look at it that way.”

“Right. Well here’s where that question comes in, then. Because yeah, obviously it’s kind of all an issue of perspective. So... how to explain this. So there’s a line, the distance from the earth, from the sun, from our source of heat and life and really the base of everything we know about everything, and these things we sent away, this absurd distance to travel, never to return, and how they still send back these signals from all that way through an inconceivable void... and it took me actually getting to that point, feeling that lost, and distant, and isolated, no way to know if there was still any connection to where I was launched, just transmitting these probably pointless signals back to some faintly remembered point of origin that for all I knew, no longer existed, feeling like I’d crossed some sort of border into deeper, darker, more distant places than anyone ever thought possible, all of that. So isolated that the word itself ceased to be fitting in any significant way. And in that moment, I felt like I understood something really beautiful and horrible and unavoidable and all these words that we use... that yeah, there really is life in all things. And that itself might not be great news. That you can exist as an image on a shirt, resting over someone’s beating heart, and simultaneously be literally billions of miles away in deeper, darker space than we can even really conceive of, only ever getting farther out, sending signals into the black, to a place you’ll never see again and eventually will lose you entirely. Asking yourself what happens after that. When you still keep on existing. That’ll keep you up late, if you’re not careful.”

“So basically, be careful what questions you ask, the answers might not be something you end up liking all that much.”

“Yeah, the long and short of it. I still don’t know that I’d stake my life on it, but if you ask me now, I’d say there definitely is life in all things. Whether that’s a miracle to be celebrated or a curse we can never really shake is ultimately up to all of us to be decide for ourselves, I think. So if you’re still out there, inquisitive young person, I hope that in the intervening years you were able to arrive at your own conclusions about the wonderfully sincere question you posed to me such a long time ago, and that whatever your answer was or is, it’s a lot easier to live with than mine.”

- Lyn, Cooper, et al. “Ebb Tides”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“In a trance, a vision is beheld. Against a backdrop of infinite blank expanse, only seen as "black" by virtue of it containing nothing, there are a series of spheres, varying in size, all rotating while moving through different orbits around various centers. Focus in on any one, however, and it becomes apparent that each individual sphere as first perceived is actually a conglomeration of an uncountable number of copies of the same sphere, rotating around the center of the area that at first glance, appeared to be a solid sphere itself. And as their movements are tracked, a number of almost imperceptibly small, pinhole-sized dots of light become visible, in fixed points on the surface of each sphere. The spheres, it is noticed, if their orbits happen to converge at any point, for any amount of time, pass directly through one another, as if they were intangible. And then something truly remarkable happens. Watched closely, the individual minuscule lights will sometimes be transferred from the surface of one sphere to the other when they're in contact, and remain attached to the new sphere after the orbital convergence ceases. This, in essence, is the explanation and/or description of how we move between worlds. And when the points are transferred from one sphere to another, they don't take a new form in their new world. They maintain their original forms and characteristics. That includes land masses, biomes, and the like, in addition to individual beings, etc. It could even be said to apply to things that are generally regarded as materially nonexistent - thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and such. So each world doesn't have inherent characteristics, or perhaps they did at some point, a long, long time ago, but by now, they've all been moving through one another, giving and receiving points of light at each instance of contact, that nothing could be credibly said to still exist where it once began.

In fact, if very keen, very focused attention is used, and the individual lights are followed closely enough that they begin to stand out to the point where the spheres are no longer even visible, to the point where they start to leave light trails behind them, like a long-exposure photograph of a flame in motion, the glowing paths they weave through time end up forming an enormous, impossibly intricate, interwoven spherical lattice all their own, regardless of the motion of the spheres on which they reside at any given point. Picture an indescribably complex series of glowing grapevines that have formed around an enormous spherical object. Now remove the object. What you have left - that is the weave. That’s the lattice. That is the source of all things and the true shape, substance, and nature of all existence. Both in micro- and macro-cosm. Inside us, in the way we move through each other's lives, and in the larger universe as well. The paths we take, in and around one another. What other shape could it have?”

Deirdre Soleil, “The End of Summer”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“So I came here, to this abandoned corner of a crumbling world, to ask you something, if you’ve the time to spare, of course.” He made a show of glancing around as he said it, just to make sure I wasn’t busy.

I rolled my eyes. “You know damn well my time is meaningless. Rubbing it in is beneath you.”

He chuckled, softly, and continued with a smile he thought was wry, but I just found infuriating. I knew he was aware of that as well. “Is it? Interestingly enough, that’s sort of what I’m here to discuss. So, you’re familiar with the notion of people surprising themselves with what they’re capable of, yes?” I just blinked in response, at what I thought was obviously rhetorical. He didn’t continue, though.

“Of course I am.” I did my best to stay calm. There was a more than likely possibility this whole thing was just for the sake of riling me up, for kicks or something. I don’t know. I gave up trying to guess at his motivations a long time ago.

“Just so. And you’d agree this is generally regarded as a good thing, a demonstration of previously unknown reserves of capability or character?” Another pause. Was he trying to make me feel like I was on trial? There was an irony to that I couldn’t be bothered to parse in the moment.

“Why the fuck are you asking me about this?” Impatience might have been a miscalculation on my part, but I didn’t care enough to rein it in, considering whatever the outcome of this interaction was wouldn’t meaningfully change anything about my circumstances either way, so I let myself be bothered.

“Patience, my boy. All in good time.” He was clearly enjoying watching me do my best not to grind my teeth in front of him. “Now: it would follow that when people surprise themselves with their capacity to rise to a certain occasion, or have a depth of feeling or insight they previously weren’t aware they possessed, they generally walk away with a positive overall impression of themselves, yes? I’ll just assume we’re on the same page here, unless you feel the need to interject.” Varying up his tactics, so I don’t get desensitized to the same kind of irritation too many times in a row, but somehow managing to make it sound like a magnanimous gesture on his part. It used to impress me when I’d see him do it to other people. Less impressive on the receiving end.

“What then is to be done when one is confronted with the inverse? Or I suppose perhaps contrapositive might be closer - that is, rather than finding out one is capable of more than one thought, realizing that one is thought of as being capable of a great deal more than one actually is? And, what if rather than the generally positive impressions of the aforementioned scenario, the capacity one is being envisioned as possessing is deeply, unquestionably, and extremely negative?” I had to take a second; not because I couldn’t follow what he was saying, just to make sure I was actually hearing him right. The words were there, they were all in the right order, I just couldn’t believe I had actually heard them.

“Wait... are you asking me what to do when people think you’re capable of way more horrible shit than you actually are? You. Of all people. Are asking me. Of all fucking people.” Again, I just blinked. Of the million things I’d ever envisioned coming out of his mouth, this was absolutely nowhere on the list. I almost started laughing. I’m sure the incredulity showed, but rather than use that, either as a way to attack me, or (what I was really afraid of) actually soften his demeanor, he drew himself up into a kind of imperiousness I was at least more comfortable seeing.

“Dear boy. Don’t for a second dare forget to whom you speak. You know better than anyone who I am and what I can do. Which is why I came to you. If it’s still not adding up, let me ask you one final question, that should hopefully put things in perspective: when have you ever known me to be anything but answerable for my crimes?”

And somehow, in that moment, I saw it. And despite everything else, despite what he would have even cared about in regards to my reactions, despite myself, I actually felt for him. This person, this... thing, I’d spent so many hours imagining turning beet red with my hands around his throat... I actually felt bad. I knew he didn’t care, I knew that wasn’t why he was here, wasn’t what he wanted from me or anyone else, but there it was, regardless.

Because he had a point. He’d never denied anything he did, or admitted anything he didn’t. Twisted though he was, that integrity, or internal cohesion or whatever you want to call it, obviously meant a great deal to him. He seemed to be outwardly unaffected by disdain or scorn most of the time, but I realized that was only for the things he actually did, or knew he could do. And the things he actually did were more than enough to make people hate him. I certainly did.

What he had no idea how to handle was people assuming he was capable of much worse than he actually was. I guess he figured his real capacity for awful shit would have rendered the need for inaccurate estimations nonexistent. Because it wasn’t like he could argue against or disprove anyone saying they thought he could do something. Even if he knew with every part of himself that he couldn’t, or would never, under any circumstances. Amazing, how people you regard as disgusting can still somehow manage to have a code. But he did.

And I understood, then, why he came to me. I was the best person to ask a question like that, and this was the safest place to ask it - where he knew no one would hear. Ask someone nobody will ever listen to a question you don’t want anyone else to hear, in a place no one in their right mind would ever go on purpose. That actually made a ton of sense. What I didn’t know, however, was what to tell him. Aside from what I ended up saying, after a pause that went on probably a great deal longer than I intended it to.

“...get used to it. Welcome to how the rest of us feel.”

- L. Simon, “Foreclosures”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“I can never forgive my sister for not going along with the simple falsehood that we were on good terms with each other, when we were at our dying mother’s bedside. It would have harmed no one, and allowed our mother to die with a smile on her face, instead of crying, which she instead did.

Our mother wasn’t perfect and neither of us agreed with every decision she ever made, but she loved us both very, very much, and it broke her heart to see that we had drifted apart in adulthood. All I said to her was that we had been working on reconnecting and we felt good about where things were heading, and you could see the light in her eyes when I did - one of the parts of her that the cancer could never touch - but only for an instant, before my sister interjected and told her that just wasn’t true at all.

I could spend years trying to describe the shock that passed through me in that moment, and I’ll never even come close. It felt like time stopped, and when it started moving again, everything was in slow motion: the anguish that spread across her face, like the shadow of a low cloud in the open desert, as the realization of not only the truth of my sister’s words hit her but also the understanding that I had lied, the tears that started streaming silently at first before being met by a sound I have never heard a human or animal make before or since: this mewling wail that seemed to somehow start at a point just in front of the peak of her forehead before spiraling down into her chest as she began to sob, violently, screaming in pain with each breath. The screams turned to coughing, her bedside monitor started exploding with noises and alarms, and before I could get my bearings, two nurses were pushing me out of the way, out into the hall, as more people streamed into the room to attempt to avert what happened next. I watched through the doorway as my mother died, screaming one last time, in that unearthly tone that seemed to suggest a secret language of unknowable pain, before she fell limp and unresponsive. Her time of death was called very shortly thereafter. 4:47 PM.

Before this, on some level, I never really believed people when they’d describe “missing time.” It just never seemed possible to me. But as much as I’d like to be able to tell you what my sister did or said in response, how she reacted, or anything else about the next few hours of my life, I can’t. I don’t have any recollection whatsoever. The next memory I have is driving on the highway, late that night, having apparently already begun the journey across several states back to where I was living at the time. I don’t know what, if anything, was said between us, and I’ve never felt the urge to find out. Our mother had been living alone for the last few years after our father had passed away, in the small suburban ranch home we were raised in, about 10-15 minutes from my sister’s apartment, as opposed to the 7-8 hours from mine, and it had already been decided that she would handle the estate - due to some unexpected turbulence in the local real estate market, the house was barely worth anything, and I had been doing well enough not to have to worry about inheritances - so I was never contacted by anyone in regards to that. That was 14 years ago, and we haven’t spoken since. Part of me wishes I could remember those intervening hours, for what purpose I don’t really know, certainly not anything as ridiculous as “closure,” but I still wonder. And then the other part of me realizes that no amount of clarification is ever going to change the fact that because of one single moment of callous disregard, the woman who gave us life ended hers in more pain than I would have thought a human being could feel. Some scales cannot ever be balanced. Some debts are never repaid.

Even the thought of her suffering because of it does nothing, because nothing can touch what’s already been felt. I don’t want my sister to suffer - I don’t even care if she never realizes exactly how horrible that choice was - I just want to live the rest of my life as if she doesn’t exist. That way, when her time comes, I won’t even find out until after it’s happened. That way, I won’t have to make a conscious decision in the moment to refrain from doing whatever was within my power to make sure that she ended her life in every bit as much pain as she ensured our mother did. Because in that moment, I honestly can’t say for sure that I’d be able to. And some pain should just be buried instead of passing it on to others. So that’s her gift to me. One I will happily take to my grave.”

Suhail Trieste, “My Sister’s Gift,” from “Pollux’s Letters to Thanatos: Siblings and Scripture”

[imaginarybookquotes]

“We tell so many stories, weave a world from them, can you really fault people raised on literal fairy tales for being naive? Even the fault’s irrelevant, of course; after terminal velocity, it doesn’t really matter why you’re falling.” Shrugs, takes a second to consider proceeding. Does so. “And while you can bemoan the fact that you forgot to pack your parachute all you want, you should probably start worrying about the ground. That doubles down on irrelevance, though - one way or another, you’re getting there. How you land isn’t so important when sticking the landing - this notion that at the last second things could somehow come together to avert the undeniably certain termination of your momentum - suddenly reveals itself to be both empty AND impossible.” Pauses, not for dramatic effect, but to cough. Clears throat. “So, facts. Most of what we know is wrong. If someone were pulling the strings, I’d have to commend them for allowing us to remain relatively ignorant of that fact most of the time. I don’t see how you have a life otherwise. ‘But wait, what’s the harm in imagination,’ I hear you ask. ‘Surely we’re allowed.”

At that moment the guard smiles with genuine sadness, reaches through the bars of your cell, and hands you the keys. You’re shocked, you just stand there open mouthed, not sure what’s even happening, doubting even this reality, above all others. After a beat - “Here’s the harm. You believe that if you take these keys and leave this place, things will change. ANYTHING will change. It won’t. I know that. And you do too, on some level. But admitting it would be more than you can take. Don’t believe me? Okay, hang on.” Pulls out a small stack of pictures - drug store prints, stills from what appears to be a security camera. Starts holding them up and showing them to you.

It’s you. You walking out, then almost immediately back in. And again. And again. And again. “You never remember this part. That doesn’t make having to tell you all over again for the thousandth time any easier to do, by the way. I know it’s not your fault, but... well, put yourself in my shoes. Would YOU enjoy having to do that, day in and day out, for years on end? There you go.”

“You don’t leave. You CAN’T leave. You can check out any time you like-“ pauses to see if you get the reference, momentarily proud of being so clever. “You get the idea. This is your home. More than that: this is your world. And for some reason I drew the short straw, so I get to explain this all to you until what, something happens? Something is different? Forgive me if it seems I lack the optimism for that hope. In my shoes, I imagine you would as well.” Long sigh.

"Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not telling you you're not allowed to dream. No one should feel like that's not an option. It's just... when the dreams take root in your mind to such a degree that you forget they're imaginary... I wish there was a way to get you to realize the difference between your dreams and the tangible world; a way that didn't involve having this conversation. Repeatedly." You find it strange, this being described as a conversation, since usually those involve more than one person talking. "A way that lasted. I guess that's where MY dreams fail me. Which shouldn't come as such a shock - after all, that's one of the very basic things we all have in common, right?"

The question you uncertainly assume is rhetorical hangs there in the air, and as things lapse into silence, you find your thoughts drifting to castles, heroes, to finding a deep and rewarding meaning to loss, to loss of love. A sunset to ride into. A twist ending. A moral. Redemption. Anything. Anything to (even for just the briefest of moments) take your mind away from the awareness of the ever approaching ground beneath you as you plummet."

- J. Aleph Meyer, "May All Your Glories be Allegories, pt. 2 - Anosognosia For the Faint of Heart