“Isn’t everyone on the planet or at least everyone on the planet called me stuck between the two impulses of wanting to walk away like it never happened and wanting to be a good person in love, loving, being loved, making sense, just fine? I want to be that person, part of a respectable people, but I also want nothing to do with being people, because to be people is to be breakable, to know that your breaking is coming, any day now and maybe not even any day but this day, this moment, right now a plane could fall out of the sky and crush you or the building you’re in could just crumble and kill you or kill the someone you love— and to love someone is to know that one day you’ll have to watch them break unless you do first and to love someone means you will certainly lose that love to something slow like boredom or festering hate or something fast like a car wreck or a freak accident or flesh-eating bacteria— and who knows where it came from, that flesh-eating bacteria, he was such a nice-looking fellow, it is such a shame— and your wildebeest, everyone’s wildebeest, just wants to get it over with, can’t bear the tension of walking around the world as if we’re always going to be walking around the world, because we’re not, because here comes a cancer, an illness a voice in your head that wants to jump out a window, a person with a gun, a freak accident, a wild wad of flesh-eating bacteria that will start with your face.”
“Isn’t everyone on the planet or at least everyone on the planet called me stuck between the two impulses of wanting to walk away like it never happened and wanting to be a good person in love, loving, being loved, making sense, just fine? I want to be that person, part of a respectable people, but I also want nothing to do with being people, because to be people is to be breakable, to know that your breaking is coming, any day now and maybe not even any day but this day, this moment, right now a plane could fall out of the sky and crush you or the building you’re in could just crumble and kill you or kill the someone you love— and to love someone is to know that one day you’ll have to watch them break unless you do first and to love someone means you will certainly lose that love to something slow like boredom or festering hate or something fast like a car wreck or a freak accident or flesh-eating bacteria— and who knows where it came from, that flesh-eating bacteria, he was such a nice-looking fellow, it is such a shame— and your wildebeest, everyone’s wildebeest, just wants to get it over with, can’t bear the tension of walking around the world as if we’re always going to be walking around the world, because we’re not, because here comes a cancer, an illness a voice in your head that wants to jump out a window, a person with a gun, a freak accident, a wild wad of flesh-eating bacteria that will start with your face.”
Catherine Lacey
“It depressed me to think that I might have been looking at another person but seeing only myself.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“I sometimes wondered why I even answered the phone, but I guess I always had the hope that it would be someone else, some other way of life calling for me.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“She missed his nothing. It had felt like something.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“But what had really happened? It was still unclear. Was it possible nothing of any significance had ever happened between us and our ending was just the sad process of realizing this?”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“Speaking felt impossible, as contained and enclosed as she was, a longing that went on a loop, a longing for nothing at all.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“I closed my eyes, tried to get as far away from myself as I could.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“She was sure no one had ever been more in love than they were in those weeks, consumed by such longing, wanting to just be alive beside each other.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“I couldn't decide how to feel about what he was saying, whether it was all nonsense or just more evidence that I would never understand this world.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“It was grotesque and eerie, too strange of a dream.”
Catherine Lacey, The Answers“He would never be that way again. He would never have the power of that specific kind of not-knowing.”
Catherine Lacey, The AnswersAll in One Creative & Marketing Platform to tell stories at scale
