On "Should" by Tao Lin (1824 words) ****

What I like about this piece isn't perhaps that it offers any sort of clarity. In fact, it works way from clarity as much as possible, jumbling moments together, returning to them, redefining them, trying to figure out what they mean. Did this guy just get broken up with? Or is he seeing this girl? Are they compatible or not? The story works with the same sort of obsessiveness with which we work through such thoughts. And like most such thoughts, they lead us nowhere, at least until babies are involved. Read the story here at Bear Parade.