Tally Sky

“Aunt Elner,” she said, “do you like people?”
“Oh, lands, yes, honey, sure, I do. Come to think of it, I guess you could go so far as to say that people are my pets (...) To tell you the truth, I feel sort of sorry for most of them. Some days I could just sit down and cry my eyes out … poor little old human beings—they’re jerked into this world without having any idea where they came from or what it is they are supposed to do, or how long they have to do it in. Or where they are gonna wind up after that. But bless their hearts, most of them wake up every morning and keep on trying to make some sense out of it. Why, you can’t help but love them, can you?”
― Fannie Flagg, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

“Do you believe in God, Aunt Elner?”
“Sure I do, honey, why?”
“How old were you when you started believing, do you remember?”
Aunt Elner paused for a moment. “I never thought about not believing. Never did question it. I guess believing is just like math: some people get it right out of the chute, and some have to struggle for it. (...) Oh, I know a lot of people struggle, wondering is there really a God. They sit and think and worry over it all their life. The good Lord had to make smart people but I don’t think he did them any favors because it seems the smart ones start questioning things from the get go. But I never did. I’m one of the lucky ones. I thank God every night, my brain is just perfect for me, not too dumb, not too bright. You know, your daddy was always asking questions.”
“He was?”
“I remember one day he said, ‘Aunt Elner, how do you know there is a God, how can you be sure?’ ”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said, ‘Well, Gene, the answer is right on the end of your fingertips.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, think about it. Every single human being that was ever born from the beginning of time has a completely different set of fingerprints. Not two alike. Not a single one out of all the billions is ever repeated.’ I said, ‘Who else but God could think up all those different patterns and keep coming up with new ones year after year, not to mention all the color combinations of all the fish and birds.’ ”
Dena smiled. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Yes, but, Aunt Elner, how do you know that God’s not repeating old fingerprints from way back and reusing them on us?’ ” She laughed. “See what I mean? Yes, God is great, all right. He only made one mistake but it was a big one.”
“What was that?”
“Free will. That was his one big blunder. He gave us a choice whether or not to be good or bad. He made us too independent … and you can’t tell people what to do; they won’t listen. You can tell them to be good until you’re blue in the face but people don’t want to be preached at except at church, where they know what they are getting and are prepared for it.”
“What’s life all about, Aunt Elner? Don’t you ever wonder what the point of the whole thing is?”
“No, not really; it seems to me we only have one big decision in this life, whether to be good or bad. That’s what I came up with a long time ago. Of course, I may be wrong, but I’m not going to spend any time worrying over it, I’m just going to have a good time while I’m here. Live and let live.”
― Fannie Flagg, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

“I won't be seeing you again," he said. "It's just as well. I've told you too much to want to see you again."
I wasn't so sure of that. It seemed possible that he would want to see me later on for that very reason. I alone, he believed, possessed an unfalsified image of his life. But that could make him hate me; perhaps he would feel that I had taken his wife from him, this time irrevocably—if he really believed that his own memory deceived him and only mine remained clear.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, The Night in Lisbon

“As usual in times of war, fear, and affliction, the individual human being had ceased to exist; only one thing counted: a valid passport.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, The Night in Lisbon