Catherine Lacey: The Answers

The installation was intended to hasten Kurt's editing of The Walk by stimulating gamma waves, but it had taken several months of trial and error to sync the correct tracks with patterns in cloud coverage and atmospheric pressure, a process that had creatively derailed Kurt to the point that his meditation counselor, Yuri, suggested Kurt spend some time doing something repetitive and therapeutic to allow the psychological impact of the installation to set in so Kurt spent months constantly knitting, creating yards-long scarves and hats that grew wider and wider until they had no recogniseable use.


How sad our respective nothings had seemed at first, the cool absence in a bed, the dinners with a book. Then, even sadder, those nothings became preferable. The simplicity of being alone won out over the complexity of being together.


She did miss the comfort of his life drifting beside hers. She missed his nothing. It had felt like something.


Of course, it was just her job to care, to listen, and she was merely participating in the worldwide tradition f dreading one's work, but she felt a new difficulty in getting herself to cooperate, to go along with it all.