If Nothing Else, I Will Have at Least Written This Sentence: Sentences from an Unwritten Novel

He could love you, or he could hate you; he had found very little use for middle ground.

He clung to the idea that remaining mindful and present in the slow motion of a moment amid the onslaught of the daily neurotic, maddening dash of appointments and deadlines and routine maintenance was an option; he implicitly understood that turning off the "device" was key.

His main issue--or perhaps it was just an observation--stemmed from the fact that he was already thinking about how he could write about whatever he was experiencing or observing before the experiential or observational act, or state, concluded; all of his other problems--or "ways"--branched away from this stem.

He wouldn't be present at the memorial due to family obligations, but then again he wouldn't have been completely present anyway, smiling and chatting and persevering.

In a quiet moment, while he was watching Netflix, all of the emotion he hadn't been able to find found him.

Her independence inspired a radical shift in perspective for someone like him, as if going from walking to flying in a plane.

One humid summer night, after he had wrapped up a late-night painting session in the basement studio with her brother, he had spied her, the older sister, sleeping on the couch as he exited the bathroom on the main floor, thinking to himself in that unavoidable yet noncommittal pause that she looked like an angel from a Wim Wenders movie if the angels in Wenders' films had slept.

He was glad that she relied on him, oh, so little, as was within her character, but every now and then, and again, as if to make him happy.

They looked on with astonishment and jealousy as the lead singer of Les Savy Fav came down from the stage to lick their compatriot's bald, sweating head.

He would always remember her generosity, her kindness, her support of the arts, and of several artists, in particular, who needn't be mentioned or praised.

He felt that he was here to say the thing that certain people in certain situations needed to hear.

It hadn't occurred to him when he took her to the hospital that she wouldn't come home despite the fact that he was just as cynical and jaded as any intelligent American.