Casey McKinnon

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.”
― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Discharge my followers; let them hence away,
From Richard's night to Bolingbrooke's fair day.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard II

“Everything dies eventually. We all know that. People, cities, whole civilizations. Nothing lasts. So if existence was just binary, dead or alive, here or not here, what would be the fucking point in anything?"
She looks up at some falling leaves and puts out her hand to catch one, a flaming red maple. "My mom used to say that's why we have memory. And the opposite of memory - hope. So things that are gone can still matter. So we can build off our pasts and make futures." She twirls the leaf in front of her face, back and forth. "Mom said life only makes any sense if we can see time how God does. Past, present and future all at once."

I allow myself to look at Julie. She sees my tears and tries to wipe one away. "So what's the future?" I ask, not flinching as her fingers brush my eye. "I can see the past and the present, but what's the future?"

"Well . . . ," she says with a broken laugh. "I guess that's the tricky part. The past is made out of facts . . . I guess the future is just hope."

"Or fear."

"No." She shakes her head firmly and sticks the leaf in my hair. "Hope.”
― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies