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talking was the answer to all of her problems? Louise

couldn't believe it. She 'didri'twant to believe it. It

wbuld have meant her life had been, up until now, wrong. A

inistake. I 'mean,'yeah, hooray, 'Lou-isecould change and she

could start· leading a happy life. But did she want to?

prod~ctive people aren't happy people. They have seen

that ~ife is bottomless' and empty like they were looking

into wells, and rather than diving in or taking a drink they

,attempt to fill it 'up with immaterial things, only to hear

the spltink and sploosh of change rippling in the water. Not

that Louise was producing ,anything othe;: than 'ideas, really.

,And ideas don:'t really make money or solve anything, but she

'fitthe description. '. '

They have new, ways' of breathing, these people,

where every breath in is an inspiration, every bre~th

but ~xhilaration. But even if they find that all their

aspirations are becoming nothing but great sighs, they keep

doin'g it. They have to. They couldn't live if they stopped

breathi~g. The alternative is killing oneself, probably

by jumping off a very tall building. Breathing is a less

pairiful process;
Oh my god, she thought again. Was Louise only happy when she

was unhappy? Wh~t the hell does that even mean? Louise had

no"idea. Of course she wasn't happy when she was unhappy.

That would be absurd: Not that the world is under some

obligation to work rationally. Really, there's no good

reason for anything bei~g the way it is. ~

Regardless, it was true that Louise was wa~y of

happiness. She thought that being happy was generally

overrated, 'like amusement parks or pot. JOy carries you

high up'into the sky, but you're so enthralled and busy

looking up that you never see where you're going or the

great view beheld to you from'beneath. At that point you can

either float blissfully into the stars like monks crossing

rivers and die a death from oxygen deprivation, or you can

get hit by an airplane, plummet to the ground"and,wakeup

'in a hospital several 'weeks later wondering what the he Ll,

happene'd while doctors and nurses tell you you should never,

'never do that 'again. whateyer the hell it was.

up there, you think you can hold it in your hands like

,it was solid light. You even think you can keep it with.you

,_'for the 'rest of. 'your life. But your arms are outstretched,

y6ur,pockets have holes, and life means nothing tG you

anyrUore anyway, and that little nugget of fool's gold falls

radiating 'through the sphere, burning on its way down and

melting droplets of ochre across an empty black sky. It's

quite a show for those who wake up to see it, standing on

the lawn in the 'middle of the night, and even if they didn't

see as many shooting stars as they had hoped for, they still