Craving by Kristina Meister Page A

question. At first, I wanted to rave at him, demand an answer, but I realized that I already knew the answer and he was waiting to hear me say it.
    “She was suicidal.”
    He tilted his head and for the first time, looked away.
    “I always knew she was troubled, but I thought . . .” I mumbled. “I thought she was past the worst of it.”
    He looked at me again. “And perhaps it had nothing to do with sorrow.”
    I set down the cup, confused. “Then you talked to her?”
    “Yes.”
    “And she didn’t seem depressed?”
    “If anything, she was focused.”
    “On killing herself?” I raised my voice.
    He shrugged and I could see his sympathy.
    I calmed myself. “Did you meet her here?”
    His head gave a slow shake. “We met in the park. She was writing in a spiral notebook she bought at the local drugstore.”
    That sounded like her. The image took me back to her childhood, when I would look up from my toys on the back lawn and find her in a tree, her legs dangling as she drew pictures of birds.
    “We live in the information age,” he continued, glancing at the bookshelves near our circle of yellow light. “Inundated with words, even in our breakfast cereal. Any person, anywhere, can write their thoughts, and instantly they are mine. No one takes the time anymore to think about what it all means.”
    “It’s just noise,” I grumbled and took another sip.
    His eyes found mine again and locked them into a gravitational pull of the greatest force. “‘Every word written is a victory against death.’ It isn’t noise, but because we cannot filter it, it sounds like noise.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said with my hand up. “I just meant that it feels overwhelming.”
    He smiled and it was that same smile from the cemetery. “No you didn’t. You are nothing if not pessimistic, and you meant what you said, but that’s fine.”
    Absolved, but feeling as if that was a different type of crime, I sat mute, uncertain what could possibly be said to that.
    He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and meshing his fingers in the air between us. Without intending to, I fantasized about placing my hands over his and smoothing my fingertips over the details I found there.
    “History is composed of major events and, in some cases, a few characters, because humans cannot recall all those tiny moments in between. In that immense context, Einstein’s letters, the drawings of an old man from Florence, even John Hancock’s John Hancock are all priceless, but by themselves, without any significance granted by history, a lone man’s words are simply discarded as noise. They are sounds not Zeitgeist, but the only thing that makes them less valuable is either that we, as his fellow men, find others who represent those things more perfectly or can only listen to so much of the same before we shut our ears. Such attitudes breed reckless disregard, and though it is easy to become overwhelmed, we should fight that at any cost.”
    I began to see his point. If a person could float in the sea of knowledge and not drown, if they could be universally accepting and receptive, then every word was important, and though he seemed to be just that sort of person, I was most definitely not. I needed filtering. For me, it all needed some kind of vast organization. Just thinking about the Herculean effort of such a task, sent my OCD twitching.
    “Your sister told me I sounded like a librarian, but I gave her my card and told her to give her own words the respect they deserved. A few days later, she called me and brought me her first shoebox.”
    Without meaning to, I laughed and was pleased to see him smile.
    “Now she has brought me you,” he said with a wave.
    When I didn’t say anything out of mild embarrassment, his blue eyes sparkled in play.
    “You need to hear someone say it, don’t you?”
    I wasn’t sure what he meant, but his soft voice was almost mesmerizing. I knew he knew what he meant, and