The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 99

She was the kind of person who persistently looked for the good. She’d point out the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you told her it was an oncoming train she’d smile and say, “Well then at least it will all be over soon.”

She was the sweet in bittersweet. The brown sugar in the butterscotch. The orange in the marmalade.

But it was reality she was after not roses. “Roses are coming,” she would say. “No tears in heaven,” she’d say. “But,” and this was the important part. “But that means this life is the only chance you have in all eternity to make a sacrifice that actually hurts.”

“To be,” she’d say, “heroic.”

He reminded himself of her words. He sucked on a butterscotch. And he got to work.