Being dead was the easy part. That part made sense. It was living that was complicated.
Good Moses
Cork Oak – Editor’s Pick
She’s gonna be pissed when she wakes up. Realizes I went to the movies without her. But I was too tired to leave. Too tired even to look up movies and instead read the back of the wine label. Those labels either say very astute things or nothing at all, and that’s how you know you’re dealing with a good bottle or a so-so bottle. A good bottle will tell you what to expect in a universally agreed upon vocabulary: floral, levels of oak, that sort of thing, and suggest some pairing options, lamb or pate or crème brûlée. A so-so bottle will describe the wines in terms of ‘the texture of dreams’ or some BS made up to not be read at all, and if read, to not mean anything. A so-so bottle of wine makes no commitments.
Seasons Wither
“Back when I was young, you could work a job and have enough money to live on and to save. You work on the buses don’t you? Driving? Back in the day you would’ve had your own house off the back of that, and the missus would be able to stay at home with the little one, once it arrived.”
Fish Mandala
Ryan had decorated the dumpster with a bumper sticker of a line drawing of a fish. It's true that the simple fish had once been a secret way to let other Christians know you were Christian too, but when Ryan put the sticker there, he wasn’t trying to communicate anything about religion. He was saying, “Let’s go fishing.”
Acorn Jelly
You never understood the appeal—brown and gelatinous, tasteless under its soy sauce dressing. Dog food, your classmates used to hiss in the cafeteria. You flung it into the trash, container and all. Go back to your country. Can you see anything, with those eyes? You thought you belonged in the garbage as well, safe among juice boxes and pizza crusts.
Camp
“The suffering is…it’s just sublime. Do you understand what I mean?...