The sun is shining brilliantly here on L— Lake, where the waters lap slowly along the shore, and all that remains of winter is the large slab of ice that lay dying in the lake’s center. Its fingers will be further away tomorrow. I’m sitting at the water’s edge, where our floating dock used to jut out into the lake. Time and weather have destroyed it. During the summers I’d laze around on it, fruitlessly waiting for a girl in a bikini to go by, eventually giving up and going for a swim or a ro...

The sun is shining brilliantly here on L— Lake, where the waters lap slowly along the shore, and all that remains of winter is the large slab of ice that lay dying in the lake’s center. Its fingers will be further away tomorrow. I’m sitting at the water’s edge, where our floating dock used to jut out into the lake. Time and weather have destroyed it. During the summers I’d laze around on it, fruitlessly waiting for a girl in a bikini to go by, eventually giving up and going for a swim or a ro...

Two of my favorite books in the last few years are Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 and Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World. Both books blend historicity with invention, elevating uncertainty re: where facts end and truth begins. The construct isn’t new, but I think it’s a meta that is apropos for today’s world. There are several domains where one can apply this, from the norms of the international system down to an individual’s gender identity. A cloud of unknowing descends...

Two of my favorite books in the last few years are Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 and Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World. Both books blend historicity with invention, elevating uncertainty re: where facts end and truth begins. The construct isn’t new, but I think it’s a meta that is apropos for today’s world. There are several domains where one can apply this, from the norms of the international system down to an individual’s gender identity. A cloud of unknowing descends...