I don't know why..

but when I read this it made me cry..

"Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from where a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair.


Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. When they were ten he asked her to marry him. When they were eleven, he kissed her for the first time. When they were thirteen, they got into a fight and for three weeks they didn't talk. When they were fifteen she showed him the scar on her left breast. 


Their love was a secret they told no one. He promised her he would never love another girl as long as he lived. What if I die? she asked. Even then, he said.


For her sixteenth birthday he gave her an English dictionary and together they learned the words. What's this? he'd ask, tracing his index finger around her ankle, and she'd look it up. And this? he'd ask, kissing her elbow. Elbow! What kind of word is that? and then he'd lick it, making her giggle. What about this? he asked, touching the soft skin behind her ear. I don't know, she said, turning off the flashlight and rolling over, with a sigh, onto her back. When they were seventeen they made love for the first time, on a bed of straw in a shed.


Later- when things happened that they could never have imagined- she wrote him a letter that said: When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?"

Nicole Krauss, The History of Love.

This passage has everything I have been taught, both as a Theater major and an English major, that constitutes as good writing:

1. It is engaging.
2. It is well written.
3. It is beautiful, as in it touches on this notion of sweet sadness. (We will come back to this later, as it is also tied to "suffering")

Last, but not least, it tells a story. I think that's why I majored in English. It's all about the story. If you can't sell me on the story, you've done nothing but waste perfectly good paper.

Good stories are hard to come by, especially a story that leaves me wondering, "Then what happened?"