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A Happy Ghost

Book by Karl Kristian Flores · 8 quotes · Society, Loneliness, Life

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A Happy Ghost Quotes

“People acted how they looked like. The reactions of the world to one’s appearance were an invisible estimation of one’s perception of themselves. The beautiful and the hideous each got treated a certain way—experiencing wildly different kinds of years. The beautiful were told phrases the hideous never heard. The beautiful struggled more with envy, while the hideous spent more time practicing courage, for things never easily bent their way. Every person accepted how they were treated and sank into that role. It showed in the way they sat. How their heads turn. When they spoke. If they spoke. Mannerisms were then not a matter of individual personality, but collective decree. Andrei would notice in a stranger all the things their body did, memorize them, and project them imaginarily on a different person. The imagined transference would never work! It seemed odd, like a miscalculation, to visualize a gorgeous Adonis walk with his head down and fidgety fingers the way a shy man did. There was undeniably a pattern of traits between strangers, courtesy of the strangers they meet.”

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“Her limber body swayed as though in time to an orchestra and in a way that showed she ate well, and ate all kinds of things no one could tell, like veal or fresh figs in the sunshine. She had the kind of face that made one cry. She drew salt water out like sheer chemistry. The chemical reaction was usually the same sentiment—the world saw the little shelf bone under her eyes, a sharp nose, precious jaw, two moons for cheekbones, and so was deeply confused and upset that there was no metal armor attached to her body to protect her. People had cried fearing all kinds of possibilities—that a piece of hail might cut across her cheek, a drunkard might break her nose, or a car from nowhere would crash into hers and shatter her skull entirely. But no case of that happened. She remained unblemished. Watchful cars slowed down for her as she walked, drunkards sobered at her eyes, and even hail made way for this little human.”

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“He eyed her fingernails, painted bright blue. Her wrists smelled like peppermint and she said her name was “Stella.” Andrei was impressed by her femininity, the subject of which was a dangerous thing. When some men are exposed to a certain kind of woman, they become so absolutely entranced by their iridescence that they would do anything to be around them for longer. Lie. Linger. Kill. It was a pure, wild attraction, that started from a collarbone, that would make a man agree to rip out his tooth if only to hear a woman talk again. Lastly, she had these devilish eyes exclusive to brown and only ever sometimes encountered. Those types of eyes were so dark they had death in them, but were framed with such sweet, narrow eyelids that took death, swirled it in a sizzling adorableness, and communicated a dangerous, impatient capability for sex. It seduced men throughout history—what lived behind the mischievous, delicate, hickory fire.”

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“To Andrei, he could see all that was unpleasant about her face—her large nose and bony frame. But inside her, there was so much peace and contentment that somehow, she lit up everywhere. She was beautiful to him. It was the kind of attraction between people who were really people—and who could see the other person’s aura and makings. He saw what made her flesh move, and not her flesh. The intricate mechanics of her person, and not her shell. Andrei looked at O’Hare and saw something genderless—a kind of organism that was born and that over time has been affected and affects—that was ultimately kind and brave. It was the highest rank of physical desire one could experience. When the beautiful made standard love to each other, there always lay at least one angle of ugly—maybe in the dark, from the side, with a sound they made, or everything once one was finished. In what O’Hare and Andrei shared, beauty could take its time and no second could stop it. It was the type of wholesome love that made a couple stare for minutes at the other, not because they adored their lover’s eye color, but because in those minutes they were speaking to the person within the person, finding them, seeing them see, and playing together in that invisible planet created by two intuitive inventors.”

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“Beautiful people were led to think their beauty needed to go somewhere. On a person’s phone. In a magazine. Outwards. Why do anything with it? Maybe all the models on runways loved it, but maybe most just walked in because they fit inside the doors. Here was a pretty man who did not share himself and very much could have. It was rare to meet someone with that kind of jaw, sweet eyes, and those arms, who did not fall into modeling or influencing. There was magic in this. Lorenzo inadvertently alchemized his reserve into a valuable currency: the only time someone could see his beauty was if they were in the same room he was in or if they heard about it from someone who was there. Lorenzo had planted a kind of beauty in the world not captured by a camera, but a beauty that passed through and could only ever be run into.”

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“Olivia had to pretend. Life moved very fast to her. She was so often approached by men, who saw a full body that looked even better trying to hide. Boys in school said one thing to her, then another, and soon the wolves swayed the girl toward their dens. She had to pretend she was in control, that she had a choice, rather than reveal that ever since her body volumized, she had no idea what was going on or who she was. It was the curse of a body that grows faster than the girl inside it.”

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“This living organism breathed, could roam around the world, see and be seen, and make any mess it wanted. And here Andrei was, pulsing in a field with another pulse. How miraculous that for a short period, the two of them could focus their eyes, turn their heads, lift their limbs, and run straight into the arms of another person. The living were not rocks or wood, incapable of being affected by chance, but rather forces of momentary magic that could digress and collide with anything it chose. Should a human ever feel bored lying atop their bed, they could change reality and within thirty seconds walk outside and strike up a new conversation with another pulse on the street. The living sound an ancient, sacred, temporary hum that is exclusive to them. Once gone, it can never be retrieved. But if there still, it could do anything.”

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