Maybe all there is is just the next thing

“Maybe all there is is just the next thing” is a phrase Marilyn Monroe takes from Roslyn and repeats to herself as a mantra. It offers a way to narrow an unbearable present to whatever comes next, but its recurrence places that fragile consolation beside episodes of bodily pain, medication, and isolation.

Wording and Source

The phrase comes to Marilyn through Roslyn’s words. In its first appearance, it loops through Marilyn’s mind in increasingly broken repetitions before settling again into its full form. The narrative compares this private recitation to a Hindu mantra and to a yogini whispering a secret prayer; Marilyn’s thought that it is a “beautiful consolation” makes clear that, for a moment, the sentence seems to offer relief.

Repetition Under Distress

That consolation does not remove the distress around it. The mantra appears beside a barbiturate sleep and the image of red ants biting Marilyn’s mouth. Later, while she is in a hotel suite, separated from her husband in different rooms, physically weak and struggling to reach the door, the sentence returns on its own as an isolated line. The recurrence links two states of vulnerability without turning the phrase into a cure: it gives the mind something small to hold onto while the body remains in crisis.

Narrative Function

The sentence’s plainness is part of its force. Rather than promise recovery or explain suffering, it reduces the horizon to the next thing. Its return makes the phrase both an act of self-soothing and a measure of how little reassurance the surrounding circumstances provide. The repeated words briefly impose order, but the scenes around them preserve the gap between a consoling thought and actual safety.