Hope: A Tragedy

Maybe Godot shows up in act three, my son; maybe the audience is just leaving too early. ESTRAGON: Where’d they all go? VLADIMIR: They were just here.

Protecting a child from the outside world is easy, said Anne Frank as Kugel struggled to descend; his leg ached and he could only hold on, awkwardly, with his one good hand. Protecting him from his inner world, Anne Frank continued, is quite a bit more complicated.

how could she think that dying was always more tragic than living?

Tall people appeared to have it easy; that was what Kugel found so galling. Like things just went their way. Let’s go buy a house! Let’s get expensive diving watches! Why not, we’re tall!

Why did children always draw the sun smiling? he wondered. It’s a giant ball of fire, kids. It’s rage and fury. Whatever it’s doing, it isn’t fucking smiling.

a furry, flattened body with a red/gray ejaculation of blood and brains having burst from his little exploded head. To Kugel, chipmunks looked as if they’d died of a good idea;

THE SUN WAS IN THE SKY like a something.

Kugel set off, the wind in what would have been, some years ago, his hair.

THAT NIGHT, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, Kugel thought he heard a gentle tapping on the vent, but decided that he hadn’t. Maybe he had. He hadn’t.