It feels like we’d need some light to see the darkness; we’d need some time to see the space. (Nothing happened before this, because no thing happens in no time.)

It feels like, if space were transparent, we’d have to see something through it on the other side. But nothing has no sides.

The question is, why is there something or nothing?

Why that nothing, instead of some other, under-nothing?

Which is more frightening, nothing or empty space?

What’s the difference between scared and afraid?

Is it the difference between a present threat and a future threat? Or a sudden threat and a slow one?

Are there horror stories where the people in the story aren’t scared?

Or is all horror fear horror—what’s scary is the fear.

If we like scary movies, we must like real horror on some level too.

I like listening to sad music when I’m sad. It doesn’t make me feel happier per se, it just improves the quality of the sadness.

More to the point, certain frivolities that used to feel harmless now feel harmful. Choices always feel personal.

Personally, I like when decisions feel like they make themselves.

I like to make small decisions that essentially don’t matter.

Eye pain feels inherently emotional. The way odd numbers feel more random.

As I get older, I feel less confident, because less self-deceiving.

I sometimes have the feeling that everything in the future is inevitable, yet I have to experience the events as if they weren’t.

Or, “the present” is the illusion that we don’t know the future.

Samuel Johnson said, “Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.” (Not will not—did not.)

Chief Plenty Coups of the Crow Nation said, “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.”

After this nothing happened.

Like throwing a paper airplane into a canyon.

Maybe we don’t yet understand everything about how this happened.

After the shock comes a feeling that I knew this would happen.

Dramedy

Did you know when unemployment is high

There’s a sharp decline in fatal accidents?

Did you know tobacco itself is radioactive?

Who do I think I’m talking to? No one

With a face, with dahlias for eyes,

A train tunnel mouth.

Write the image out.

A new one appears,

Black asterisks on a field of white.

When I’m suffering I don’t ask for help.

I’m afraid they’ll come and try

To take my pain away.

Concentrate now on the passage of time.

There is no normal rate.

It takes as long as it takes.

I Don’t Want to Hear Any Good News or Bad News

The other day I thought of an old enemy and smiled—not with malice, but with fondness. I felt like I missed her.