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Birth of a Pearl

Have you ever thought about how a pearl is born? A grain of sand gets inside the shell. A foreign body. An irritant. Pain. And to protect itself from this pain, to isolate this splinter, the mollusk begins to cover it layer by layer with nacre. Year after year. It doesn't try to create a masterpiece. It simply tries to soothe the pain. And as a result of this long, agonizing, unconscious process, something beautiful is born.

Single Player

Before her, my life was a single-player game polished to a blinding sheen. I knew my map by heart: the gray subway line, the humming office open space, the three familiar bars that rotated menus every Friday. My skill tree had long been leveled to absurdity: “Sarcasm” at level 100, “Art of the impassive face” at expert, “Ability to tell good...