The Everlasting Story of Nory

16. Something Needs to Fail

The idea of everlasting life came partly from the kinds of things you say in Cathedral, and partly from a movie called The Neverending Story, which was an extremely good movie in many ways, one of which was that it was unusually rare to have a two-part movie and have the second part be just as interesting as the first, basically. ‘Neverending’ and ‘everlasting’ were good words for the job because they last and last when you say them, like ‘forevermore.’

Nory had saved up a few stories from the Everlasting Life of Mariana, and she was wondering how in the world she would remember them, since they were too long to write down. Some were definitely a touch on the gruesome side, but that was what you might expect since if it’s a gruesomeness that comes from your own private brain when you’re awake it’s not the least bit the same as the kind of gruesomeness that somebody else might offer you in a book or a movie. On the other hand, the scary things your brain decides to show you at night are totally different, they can be very bothersome, definitely, but the things that you think up on purpose are usually not as bad, because they were just teetering at the exact limit of frighteningness that you wanted them at, and you didn’t have to worry that they were going to slip over the limit.

You really need something to fail in a story, because then when it fails it has to get better. The way Nory thought of the burning rain story was that she once noticed that sometimes rain, when it was falling very lightly, would give you pins and needles on your face. Very very light rain, ting, ting, ting, could hurt surprisingly. Just tiny, tiny drops of sharp rain, coming down very quickly because they’re so small they slide right past the bigger softer raindrops.

Another time, on the way back from Blickling Hall, Nory told a story to her very small Felicity doll. It ended up being about a little brother because her own brother, Littleguy, was right next to her in his car seat, transfixed in his sleep. The story was gruesome, but not as gruesome as the story about the burning rain, which was probably the most gruesome one she’d ever told.