54
" What difference does it even make, if we all die now instead of in a few decades?" I frown, my expression unseen against her side. "What are we all doing here, anyway? What are we achieving?"
Mum smooths out a section of my hair, before twisting it around her finger. "There's no finish line you need to cross to have lived a worthy life, Lowrie. You don't need to achieve anything, if you don't want to."
"But if we're the last..." I sigh.
"Don't worry about making your ancestors proud. You don't need to be perfect, just on the off chance you're the last of your kind. Life is whatever you want it to be. With whoever you want it to be with. Life is the people around you, the ones you love. You just need to be happy. That's all that matters."
I'm quiet for a moment, taking this in. "Are you happy?"
"I'm happier than I ever thought I'd be."
"What made you happy?"
"Having you. "
― Lauren James , The Quiet at the End of the World
59
" Felix – Kiss, Marry, Kill. Kasper, Ruf-”
“Kasper,” Felix interrupted.
Rima slowly closed her mouth. “I haven’t even said the other options yet.”
“No need.”
The corner of Leah’s mouth twitched.
Rima said, “You’d . . . kiss, marry and kill Kasper?”
Persevering, Felix said, “I stand by what I said.
Unless Captain America is one of the other options.”
Harriet made an ‘Ohhh’ noise, like she’d figured something out. "
― Lauren James , The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker
60
" You know, ghosts have myths. They’re passed down from generation to generation – ancient, millennia-old ghosts passing on stories they heard when they were newly dead, from other ancient ghosts on the brink of disintegration.
The stories stretch back all the way to Neolithic times, before stories were told in words. Back then, language was crude and essential, nothing more than a way to help humans work together to hunt and eat and sleep.
Those stories don’t make much sense now. They don’t follow the forms of tales we know. They are short and to the point: the man saw a deer on the eastern slopes and cornered the deer in a small cluster of trees. It tasted good. The hide was strong.
Those early humans weren’t interested in entertainment. It hadn’t been invented yet. There were no happy endings or romance or heroes. The stories nearly always ended in death. A hunt, a defeat, a victory, a bad case of food poisoning.
But those stories – if you can call them stories – all have one thing in common, as far as I can see. They might not have plot, or characters, or beautiful writing. But there is always one thing: a lesson. A moral. A new piece of information, worthy of remembering and passing on.
I haven’t decided what the moral of my story is yet. The lesson that needs sharing. What here is worth remembering a millennium from now, if we survive that long? Worth passing onto the generations of ghosts that come after us?
I think the message might be that it’s never over. Even when you think someone is gone forever, they can return. Whether you’re desperate to speak to them one last time, or terrified to see their face. Life always finds a way. "
― Lauren James , The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker
