Isaac Marion

“I mean obviously, staying alive is pretty fucking important . . . but there’s got to be something beyond that, right?”

“Just... ate," M says, frowning at me a little. "Two days...ago."I grab my stomach again. "Feel empty. Feel... dead."He nods. "Marr...iage.”

“He is spent. His mind is mercury again, its brief surge of humanity melting into an oily residue on its surface, and he no longer understands the feelings he felt in that strange moment on the overpass.But he did feel them. They did happen. They rest on the murky seabed of his mind, buried under sand and silt and miles of grey waves. Patient seeds waiting for light.”

“There’s not really such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people, there’s just like…humanity. And it gets broken sometimes.”

“Good people see past their own fucking lives.”

“It radiates out from him like a cloud of ghosts, countless hands clutching at the air, reaching out for…something.”

“The windows are empty holes lined with glass teeth.”

“It’s more eerie to be alone in a city that’s lit up and functioning than one that’s a tomb. If everything were silent, one could almost pretend to be in nature. A forest. A meadow. Crickets and birdsong. But the corpse of civilization is as restless as the creatures that now roam the graveyards.”

“Her life has seen little light. She is twelve years old but has a woman’s weathered poise. Her abyss-blue eyes have a piercing focus that some adults find unsettling. [...] She has fired a gun into a human head. She has watched a pile of bodies set alight. She has starved and thirsted, stolen food and given it away, and glimpsed the meaning of life by watching it end over and over.”

“Suddenly exhausted, she closes her eyes and slips into nightmares again. Graveyards rising out of the ocean. Her friends’ corpses in the light of their burning school. Skeletons ripping open men's chests and crawling inside. She endures it patiently, waiting for the horror film to end and the theater to go dark, those precious few hours of blackout that are her only respite.”

“She remembers sprinting over the thin after-waves that slid over each other like sheets of glass. When she ran with the waves it looked like she wasn’t moving. When she ran against them it looked like she was flying. She refuses to believe her brother will never know these things. Somewhere, they will find sand.”

“Our cadaverous cadre has been walking for little over a day...”

“You might say that death has relaxed me.”

“Some part of me remembers what snow is, but this is the first time my new mind has seen it. It softens the crumbled sidewalks and turns rusty rooftops white. It’s beautiful. It crunches under my feet as I move toward the house, longing to understand.”

“I’m alone, stumbling through the city in the dark, trying not to let the night freeze my blood.”

“Even as I think them, the words lose their context, dissolve into grains of absurdity in the vast ocean of day-to-day hunger.”

“My mind has cleared a little; I’ve regained some instincts and associations, echoes of the Living world if not actual memories. Those I still have to steal.”

“Maybe eventually winter will finish our job for us and end the world in ice instead of blood.”

“The ethics of eating people are blurry at best in the fog of my undead amnesia, but I expect more for such a high price. What I want are the moments I will never have. The warm ones. The living ones.”

“You can order yourself to treasure a moment, to cling tight to a feeling and never let it fade, but it’s your brain, that three-pound lump of hamburger, that makes the final call.”

“We have to remember everything. If we don't, by the time we grow up it'll be gone forever.”

“She hugs me. It's tentative at first, a little scared, and yes, a little repulsed, but then she melts into it. She rests her head against my cold neck and embraces me. Unable to believer what's happening, I put my arm around her and just hold her.I almost swear I can feel my heart thumping. But it must just be hers, pressed tightly against my chest.”

“Enough white lies can scorch the earth black.”

“Che immensa responsabilità è vivere da creatura che vive con principi morali.”

“Quello che sto cercando di dire è che è un mondo di merda in cui accadono cose di merda, ma nessuno ci costringe a sguazzarci, nella merda.”

“È difficile prendere la vita troppo seriamente quando puoi vederla tutta insieme.”

“Il dono del volo lo appioppano sempre alle creature più inutili del mondo. Perché non darlo a me? Questa libertà perfetta e senza peso. Niente recinti, né muri, né confini; volerei dappertutto, sopra oceani e continenti, montagne, giungle e sterminati spazi aperti, e da qualche nel mondo, da qualche parte in tutta quella bellezza distante e intatta, troverei una ragione.”

“Il mondo è una menzogna. La sua bruttezza è schiacciante e i frammenti di bellezza lo rendono peggiore.”

“Non si tratta diincrementare la popolazione, ma di trasmettere chi siamo e cosa abbiamo imparato, così che le cose vadano avanti. Così da non limitarci a morire. Lo so che per certi versi è egoista, ma quale altro senso avrebbero le nostre vite?”

“Mia madre diceva sempre che è per questo che siamo stati dotati della memoria. E del suo opposto: la speranza. Così le cose che non ci sono più continuano a essere importanti. così possiamo sbarazzarci del passato e costruire il futuro.”

“I hate that she's hurt. I hate that she's been hurt, by me and by others, throughout the entire arc of her life. I barely remember pain, but when I see it in her I feel it in myself, in disproportionate measure. it creeps into my eyes, stinging, burning.”

“It's a shitty world and shit happens, but we don't have to bathe in shit.”

“We cast out votes and raised our leaders, charming men and women with white teeth and silver tongues, and we shoved our many hopes and fears into their hands, believing those hands were strong because they had firm handshakes. They failed us, always. There was no way they could not fail us-- they were human, and more importantly, so were we.”

“I run through the dark entry corridor toward the light on the other end, wondering if this is a birth canal or the tunnel to Heaven. Am I coming or going? Either way, it's too late to reverse. Hidden in the gloom under a red evening sky, I step into the world of the Living.”

“She looks at her wrist, those thin scars like an entry stamp for some horrible concert. 'All the shitty stuff people do to themselves... it can all be the same thing, you know? Just a way to drown out your own voice. To kill your memories without having to kill yourself.”

“I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses.”

“I feel an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation in my lips, tugging them upward. This is... new.”

“It's a strange feeling, being so utterly surrounded by her. Her life scent is on everything. She's on me and under me and next to me. It's as if the entire room is made out of her.”

“The world is a liar. Its ugliness is overwhelming; the scraps of beauty make it worse.”

“Quiero que se abra una grieta en nuestras cajas torácicas y que nuestros corazones migren y se fusionen.”

“-Pero yo tenía que volver a casa, ¿recuerdas? Se suponía que ibas a decirme adiós.-No sé por qué... dijiste adiós. Yo digo... hola.”

“In my palm I can feel the echo of her pulse, standing in for the absense of mine.”

“- Cierra la boca, Perry -dice Julie, pegándome en el hombro-. La gente aún lee.-¿En serio? -pregunta Nora.-Bueno, yo sí. ¿A quién le importa si hay una industria detrás de ello? Si todo el mundo esta muy ocupado construyendo cosas y disparando a cosas como para alimentar sus almas, que se jodan. Sólo escríbelo en un cuaderno y me lo das. Yo lo leeré.-Un libro para una sola persona -dice Nora, mirándome-. ¿Podría ser que valga la pena?Julie responde por mí. -Por lo menos sus pensamientos sandrán de su cabeza, ¿verdad? Por lo menas alguien los llegaría a ver. Creo que sería hermoso. Sería como ser dueño de un pedacito de su cerebro.”

“There's no rule book for the world. It's in our heads, our collective human hive-mind. If there are rules, we're the ones making them. We can change them whenever we want.”

“The opposite of memory--hope. SO things that are gone can still matter. So we can build off our pasts and make futures.”

“I knew I could lose everything and not feel anything, and I rested easy in that knowledge. But I'm growing tired of easy things.”

“It doesn't matter. We are where we are, however we got there. What matters is where we go next.”

“Nothing is permanent. Not even the endof the world.”

“There’s notreally such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’people, there’s just like…humanity. And itgets broken sometimes.”

“Life only makes any sense if we can see time how God does. Past, present, and future all at once.”