Laura Steven

Whatever a soul was, it could be carried in a notebook.

In a tiny cafe with fogged-up windows, Anais had adjusted her floral headscarf and told me, in a hushed, conspiratorial voice, that lost souls were drawn to the love still felt for them by the living.

And so, in the absence of any abiding religious convictions, this was the one blind faith I had: that love was a physical force, and it was never wasted. Once it was called out into the universe, it would echo back to us forever.

‘My love for you could fill an
ocean, Evelyn.’ There was an awful resignation to her tone. ‘But it can’t stop the tide of time.’

but a thousand years in this world had taught me that we only truly exist in relation to the ones we love.

Humanity was full of goodness, as long as you wanted to see it.

Maybe that’s all love is, in the end. An endless tempting of fate.’

Love is the only thing worth believing in

‘Suffering is in itself a pyramid scheme. Hurt people hurt people. One soul feels pain, so they inflict the same upon three more, in a bid to rid themselves of it. Those three pass it on to more still, and it spirals beyond all control. The human condition, so it seems.’

To love was to live, and to live was to die