#540 Malaria- Michael Byers
Orlando was living an OK life in college. He had a
girlfriend that he could not imagine living without. “I wasn’t headed anywhere
on any fast track, that was plain even then, and I didn’t have any kind of
natural flair, but I had Nora, and it felt to me like a fair exchange.”
When he went to visit her parents he met Nora’s brother,
George. After playing tennis together, George told Orlando that he had Malaria.
It was an obvious lie and it stuck in Orlando’s head. He didn’t tell Nora and
life went on. Later that year George began showing signs of mental instability.
He felt guilty about not mentioning the Malaria lie, thinking it might have
been an early warning sign. It wasn’t, it had nothing to do with him or what
lie he was told.
As Orlando and Nora broke up, and things went forward, he
learned about creating or finding his own identity. “I think this summer was
also the period when I first struck on the idea of ambition, that I could be
something in particular, rather than just myself in general.”
All this time, however, he couldn’t stop thinking about
George. This one person, with one moment taking up an unfair amount of
importance to Orlando, trying to find meaning where none existed.
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