Elaine

“She took her hatchet. She took flint and tinder. And like her mother she dug up her yams.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

“This isn't my story, but hers.
In a world full of actors trying to cunningly maneuver themselves into the lead role, she was the star of that night without even trying. She didn't realize it then, and she probably still hasn't.
This is a chronicle of her majestic journey through an alcohol-steeped night and my distress at failing to secure the lead role and making do with my existence as a pebble by the wayside.
Wise readers, relish both her cuteness and my stupidity; savor the exquisite and subtle flavor of life, not unlike that of almond tofu.
I hope you will cheer her on.”
― Tomihiko Morimi, 夜は短し步けよ乙女 [Yoru wa mijikashi aruke yo otome]

“Beyond this sense, however, of swift transient passage, was the worse, the frightful conviction, of perhaps being in reality no more than Natalie Waite, college girl, daughter to Arnold, and unable to brush away the solidity of this world but forced to deal with it as actual and dreary. Yet then--why, if this were true, the sudden sharp sympathetic picture of the white walls and the nurse coming closer? Why the graphically remembered room with the iron bedstead, the sure knowledge of the moment to slip the poison into the cup, the remembered pain? Why, above all, the constant unusual shock of the sound of her own name said aloud?”
― Shirley Jackson, Hangsaman

“We pour a bit of ourselves into everything we do, every note we play, I thought, and unwittingly, one fragment at a time, we leave ourselves in the past.”
― An Yu, Ghost Music