I. First, there was darkness. Not like ether. Not like the quiet hush before the symphony begins. This was the darkness of unanswered prayers, the fabric of nightmares. Brother Luke. Dr. Traylor. Blackness that rots bones and turns blood into venom. If pain had a scent, it would reek of decay.
II. You are sixteen years old, and it is your first year of college. For the first time ever, you have friends. It’s a peculiar sensation, a phantom limb in reverse, a part of life you never knew you were missing, but now that it’s here, now that you’ve felt togetherness without touching at all, you wonder how you survived without it for so long. There’s JB and Malcolm, but most importantly, there is Willem. Willem.
Roommate Willem. Wannabe actor Willem. Parentless, dead brother, Wyoming-grown Willem. Jude-stop-fucking-cleaning-the-apartment-stop-it-please Willem.
And you are all young and everything you touch crackles with potential, even if it’s just braiding hair for Malcolm’s strange project. They are your friends and you love them.
You’ve never loved anything or anyone before. The feeling is both warm and frightening.
III. Years turn to decades and you are now middle aged. The scars on your arms are like tree rings, keeping track of time.
When he tells you, you think he’s joking. You aren’t the kind of person people are attracted to. You aren’t even the type of person people like, not in a forever sort of way.
Really, Willem? Me, Willem? You could do so much better than me.
But he chose you and despite the scars, despite the crystalline memories that you cut yourself with nightly, he loves you.
And so it begins. The Happy Years, he dubs them, and the name is fitting. The darkness recedes, not gone, nothing is ever gone, but it has shrunk into a pocket-sized weight, just light enough that you can fly.
IV. They say the world will end as it once began, in darkness, in silence. You’re not sure about the latter, but the darkness has returned. It stings your eyes like mustard gas. You can’t stop fucking crying. This is the end that none of you saw coming, and its swift arrival leaves you breathless.
Life, it seems, is breathing through burning lungs.
a single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty (didion)
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