A letter from Levi, to Hanji
Recently, I’ve been reading about the Earth’s five great extinctions. I didn’t know, but they came way before we were even particles.
In many of them, volcanoes suffocated the atmosphere with toxic clouds of ash. They slammed against rivers, and wide valley-plains, covering their surfaces with kilometers of boiling lava. There were others, perhaps, in which the very air turned heavy with heat, or then grew so cold the grass became icy and white.
I guess we’re prone to catastrophe. Or cataclysms. Or natural disasters. The world has been shaken up by earthquakes, hurricanes, meteor crashes. Nothing, — I mean, no one— is ever free from getting broken, scratched, bruised.
The last moment I saw you, I figure that’s what my world had come to be. A raging collapse. A helpless tsunami. A wildfire. The weight of the inevitable made me crumble into scorching despair. Pain ripped my gut like the harshest of droughts can shred a rigid, tough stone. Historians say that, when we lose something, there are two tragedies that happen. Loss in itself, and the loss that blossoms as a consequence. I can hear your voice in my head, ringing and ringing so clear, asking; — who knows how many civilizations have withered without a trace? And, with them, how many languages, rituals, cultures, have we forgotten along the way?
Between you and I, there was a language that existed. A cup of tea before bed. Seeking for you in the diner. You stepping my foot from under the table if those military meetings where going on too long. I liked it that nobody else understood, just us. That, even through our worst days, it was always you the first person I wanted to run into in the hallways.
I still remember that one conversation we’ve had, such a long time ago. You were drunk out of your skull and I stood by the window in your room. I had fluffed your pillow, taken your shoes off… — I was about to leave, really. But then you looked at me. You looked at me like a child that has just caught a temperature, — with that glint of yours in your eye, — and told me you wanted me to stay. I have no idea why you did that, I was simply certain, from that night on, I just couldn’t say no. Fuck, I could never say no to you, Hanji. I bet you knew that, too, didn’t you…? That, our language was real. And ephemeral, yes. But ours. Ours and no one else’s.
Truth is, when a person dims, it’s an entire ecosystem that suffers, as well. Words, and gestures, and little magic instants shrink, and tarnish, and vanish from the skin. However, still, I like to think that, just as it happened in the five great extinctions, — and just as historians and scientists tell—, something has always remained. A mystical atom of life that prospered in the harshest of adversities. In the rarest conditions. In the impossible probabilities.
Perhaps, deep down, I’m still that stupid teen that joined the Scouts with dreams of saving humanity. But, you know, I don’t want to let go of hope, — foolish as that may be. Even after crimson clover bloodsheds, I do cling to believing that something similar happens with us… — in the end. When we’re gone, and light extinguishes behind our pupils, there’s a spark; — an atom of life that remains. That resists. That prospers. Forever, and evermore. It’s in the way I keep you with me, every single day that I breathe. The way I can draw you from memory, in my mind and with my eyes closed. The way you’re still the first person I want to run into in the hallway.
I used to think that life was too damn bleak, or unfair, when I was younger. After we’re nothing more but wind, everything else continues like normal. Life spins and spins without a stop. Sun keeps twinkling on water, or dipping up-above the horizon. Sky keeps painting itself in wide streaks of neon yellow. Rivers keep flowing down South. Cities keep bustling in flashing lights. I didn’t understand why, back then; — why the great scheme of things was indifferent to my wounding loss. Why my anguish wasn’t capable of retaining the sun, or the rivers, or curbing the clocks for the rest of the world, just like they had curbed for me. Now that I see it the way you would, I figure it’s that resistance. That resilience. That ‘something’ that stays, and fights and fights after extinction.
You’re still with me in the sun that dapples above water like fireworks. And in the neon yellow skies. And in the murmur of the rivers. You’re with me in the ticking clocks. And in my night-stand. And in every person that I come across that wears glasses. You know…? I guess, as long as I draw you from memory, and that I want to run into you first-thing in the hallway, then there’s no extinction possible. Our little language of cups of tea, and bedtime stories, and stomps from under the table lives on… — because the world keeps moving. And I’m moving in this world. And you move with me, wherever I go.
Forever, and evermore.
