The Museum of Human History

Why did people have to inflict one pain to stop another?

She had a book of lists that she showed him. He loved reading through these lists, which were like her personal historical records.

They used to joke about it. A marriage of late-stage capitalism, they said. They couldn’t afford to both work to make the world a better place, right? One of them had to pay the bills and make the world slightly worse. It might balance out, their karma.

They had never watched these home movies. But the point was never to watch them. The point had been to make them exist.

This was what Naomi’s prayer consisted of that last time she had been out there: trying to rid herself of all the new names that had been used to classify very old things. Trying to rid herself of the urge to know and claim. Praying that she could let go. Stop seeking. Choose, for once, to just be.

Sometimes, I wonder if the most accurate history is the one that remains unclaimed and untold.”

The brevity of human history felt very real to him all of a sudden. As soon as a person exists, they start disappearing, he thought. And a heart, even a huge blue whale heart, it is, in essence, a timer and every beat only counts down.

It had happened with an ease she never suspected could bring success.

And finally and forever, thank you, Andrew, for making ten thousand meals that have nourished my soul and for making every day lighter and utterly full.