The Heart Of Atlanta: A Novel

In Catholic school, they taught me that one of God's gifts to us was the inability to remember pain. I've always believed that. I know it's true of physical, toothache, scraped-knee pain - you can remember it was there, but the sensation, the feeling doesn't come back - and I think it's mostly true of emotional pain. I don't know whether the bad feelings flow out of you or whether they crawl into some chamber in the back of your brain, behind a lock you don't hold the key to. I guess it doesn't matter, except for my question of whether what's true for pain is also true for pleasure. And if the inability to remember pleasure is the price we pay to keep from hurting, I'm not sure how good the gift is after all. All this is really just to say that the time I was happiest - that second fall when Anne and Jay and I were together and everything was right, when the wanting was over and the having was on me - is the time I can remember the least about. I could tell you about some of the things that happened - the football games, the parties, the nights sitting in the dark with Anne on the cool grassy hill that sloped down to the intramural fields - but that doesn't bring it back for me, so I'm not sure anything I could say could let you know.

Author: Nick Thomas

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Publication Date: Mar 30, 2016

Number of Pages: 106 pages

Language: English

Binding: Paperback

ISBN-10: 1522977910

ISBN-13: 9781522977919