Elizabeth Leiknes

“Deep down, Story Easton knew what would happen if she attempted to off herself—she would fail It was a matter of probability. This was not a new thing, failure. She was, had always been, a failure of fairy-tale proportion. Quitting wasn’t Story’s problem. She had tried, really tried, lots of things during different stages of her life—Girl Scours, the viola, gardening, Tommy Andres from senior year American Lit—but zero cookie sales, four broken strings, two withered azalea bushes, and one uniquely humiliating breakup later, Story still had not tasted success, and with a shriveled-up writing career as her latest disappointment, she realized no magic slippers or fairy dust was going to rescue her from her Anti-Midas Touch. No Happily Ever After was coming.
So she had learned to find a certain comfort in failure. In addition to her own screw-ups, others’ mistakes became cozy blankets to cuddle, and she snuggled up to famous failures like most people embrace triumph.
The Battle of Little Bighorn—a thing of beauty.
The Bay of Pigs—delicious debacle.
The Y2K Bug—gorgeously disappointing fuck-up.
Geraldo’s anti-climactic Al Capone exhumation—oops!
Jaws III—heaven on film.
Tattooed eyeliner—eyelids everywhere, revolting. Really revolting.
Fat-free potato chips—good Lord, makes anyone feel successful.”
― Elizabeth Leiknes, The Understory