He was staring at her. Nora no longer minded his intensity, but was becoming a little concerned about her own. ‘I was a Philosophy student,’ she said, as blandly as she could manage, avoiding his eyes.
He was close to her now. There was something equally annoying and attractive about Hugo. He exuded an arrogant amorality that made his face something to either slap or kiss, depending on the circumstances.
‘In one life we have known each other for years and are married ...’ he said.
‘In most lives I don’t know you at all,’ she countered, now staring straight at him.
‘That’s so sad.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ She smiled.
‘We’re special, Nora. We’re chosen. No one understands us.’
‘No one understands anyone. We’re not chosen.’
‘The only reason I am still in this life is because of you ...’
She lunged forward and kissed him.
If Something Is Happening to Me, I Want to Be There
It was a very pleasant sensation. Both the kiss, and the knowledge she could be this forward. Being aware that everything that could possibly happen happened to her somewhere, in some life, kind of absolved her a little from decisions. That was just the reality of the universal wave function. Whatever was happening could – she reasoned – be put down to quantum physics.
‘I don’t share a room,’ he said.
She stared at him fearlessly now, as if facing down a polar bear had given her a certain capacity for dominance she’d never been aware of. ‘Well, Hugo, maybe you could break the habit.’
But the sex turned out to be a disappointment. A Camus quote came to her, right in the middle of it.
I may have not been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.
It probably wasn’t the best sign of how their nocturnal encounter was going, that she was thinking of Existential philosophy, or that this quote in particular was the one that appeared in her mind. But hadn’t Camus also said, ‘If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there’?
Hugo, she concluded, was a strange person. For a man who had been so intimate and deep in his conversation, he was very detached from the moment. Maybe if you lived as many lives as he had, the only person you really had any kind of intimate relationship with was yourself. She felt like she might not have been there at all.
And in a few moments, she wasn’t.
God and Other Librarians
‘Who are you?’
‘You know my name. I am Mrs Elm. Louise Isabel Elm.’
‘Are you God?’
She smiled. ‘I am who I am.’
‘And who is that?’
‘The librarian.’
‘But you aren’t a real person. You’re just a ...mechanism.’
‘Aren’t we all?’
