47
" I know you’re in there, Mercedes,” Faye says. “I can see your dirty Converse shoes. You really should get a new pair.”
“Did you see it?” I croak. “If you saw it, you probably saw a lot more of me. You probably shouldn’t be seen talking to me. And I should probably switch schools.”
“That’s the thing,” Faye says, stopping right outside the stall door and rapping on the metal with her fist.
“What’s the thing?” I say, pushing my shoe against the toilet paper dispenser, making no move to let her in.
“I never was any good at doing what people tell me.”
And like that, her head appears under the stall door, followed by her body. She pulls herself in and wipes her hands on her jeans.
I raise my eyebrows. “You know how disgusting that floor is?” I say. “Janitorial service at this school leaves a lot to be desired.”
She cocks her head and puts her hands on her hips. She looks like what I imagine a stern parent would look like, not that I know from experience. I wonder if she got that posture from Lydia.
“First of all, you didn’t let me in, so I had no choice. "
― Laurie Elizabeth Flynn , Firsts
49
" I walk across the park to her flat. It is over-heated and there is a great deal of pink. This used not to unnerve me. Now when I step into the bathroom I recoil.
Pink bath, pink basin, pink toilet, pink bidet, pink tiles, pink wallpaper, pink rug. Brushes, soap, tooth brush, silk flowers, toilet paper: all pink. Even the little foot-operated waste-bin is pale pink. I know this little waste-bin well. Every time I sleep here I wonder what I am doing with my time and hers. She is sixteen years younger than I am. She is not the woman with whom I want to share my life. But, having begun, what we have continues. She wants it to, and I go along with it, through lust and loneliness, I suppose; and laziness, and lack of focus. "
― Vikram Seth , An Equal Music
50
" We did not make ourselves, nor did we fashion a world that could not work without pain, and great pain at that, with a little pleasure, very little, to string us along--a world where all organisms are inexorably pushed by pain throughout their lives to do that which will improve their chances to survive and create more of themselves. Left unchecked, this process will last as long as a single cell remains palpitating in this cesspool of the solar system, this toilet of the galaxy. So why not lend a hand in nature's suicide? For want of a deity that could be held to account for a world in which there is terrible pain, let nature take the blame for our troubles. We did not create an environment uncongenial to our species, nature did. One would think that nature was trying to kill us off, or get us to suicide ourselves once the blunder of consciousness came upon us. What was nature thinking? We tried to anthropomorphize it, to romanticize it, to let it into our hearts. But nature kept its distance, leaving us to our own devices. So be it. Survival is a two-way street. Once we settle ourselves off-world, we can blow up this planet from outer space. It's the only way to be sure its stench will not follow us. Let it save itself if it can--the condemned are known for the acrobatics they will execute to wriggle out of their sentences. But if it cannot destroy what it has made, and what could possibly unmake it, then may it perish along with every other living thing it has introduced to pain. "
― Thomas Ligotti , The Conspiracy Against the Human Race