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I'm So Afraid One Day I'll Wake Up and You Won't Be There

         The apartment was quiet now. All the voices were gone, having departed for other places, to frequent other zones, to haunt and infect and maybe even leave some small traces of their presences.
         Lena was sitting at the table, alone. Her hands gently grasped a cold cup of coffee, the heat having long ago dissipated. Jina wasn't here now. Brown had gone with her. It was the second night of the wake. So it was said. They had left and had left her here. Neither of them had asked if she had wanted to go, and she was glad, because she didn't want to. As distantly uncomfortable as it made her, Lena would have much rather stayed home alone.
         Brown and Jina hadn't said much to each other as they left. No doubt the car ride was going to be interesting. Brown's voice, unhurried and measured, his cadence perfectly suited to storytelling, reverberated in her head, his story conjuring more impressions than images, colors more than pictures, feelings more than events. There had been anger in his actions, anger and a frustrated desire to do something, to enact an accomplishment rather than stand around and accept the situation. But the rage in his motions didn't match the somber canter of his words. Reciting the story, it was easier to believe he was recounting some far flung event than describing brutal personal experience.
         And in the end he had stopped just short of going too far. Of pushing his efforts to their frighteningly logical conclusion. When you claw your way to the top, there can only be one outcome. Lena shivered, rubbing her arms for warmth. It was so hard to believe. Even this sudden, senseless death was easier to grasp. Seeing Brown's back, seeing all the dried and cracked blood caking the surface like a barren desert, she knew it had to come from somewhere and yet his skin was unmarred, his health untouched. What kind of a life was she peering into, knowing these people? What had Jina tricked her into, by becoming her friend.
         This apartment was too still. Yet she was the one out of place here. Every nuance of her home was trying to evict her, to chase her out and steer her to the streets, the night, to the sights and sounds of a city that offered far more than a lonely apartment and a beverage long cooled to room temperature.
         But all her friends were in same place. And Lena didn't want to go there, partly because wakes and funerals always made her unhappy and tired, spent from expending too much energy trying not to be depressed. It was hard. But if it was someone she knew, if there was some connection, she'd be there in a second. But there wasn't. Lena's presence would just be an intrusion, a ripple of stinging pine needles, a uneasily stammered condolence to people who neither nor cared who she was. And her friends needed time with each other, with their own unfamiliar grief, to share it and come to terms with it and maybe, in time, to even accept it.
         Acceptance. Brown's denial of it had driven him to do what he did. And yet he tried for the purest of purposes and stopped himself for the best of reasons. Lena smiled when she thought of them. Brown and Tristian. Two of a kind. They refused to accept anything, sought to challenge all conclusions, strove to alter every outcome. Once she had thought Tristian was merely dourly unrealistic, his strained and distant demeanor a permanent pout against a world that refused to mold itself to the image he wanted. Now she saw that his tentative hopefulness for the world kept him going. Now Lena knew that he couldn't be any other way. Sometimes she found herself admiring, and maybe even envying, him a little bit for that. But in the end she didn't know. Their lives seemed so unrelated, so irrelevant to hers and her friends', but then something like this came along and Lena saw just how much it was all connected. How one life couldn't escape the other. Seeing Brown in their apartment, hearing what he did, realizing why he did it, Lena thought she was starting to see. It wasn't just about going to places she didn't have names for and fighting battles for causes she'd never understand. It was as real as the things she had always taken for granted. Forgetting your umbrella and walking home soaked through a warm spring rain. Waking up too early and discovering you still had two hours left to get up. Getting crushed aboard a train but happy you weren't one of the people who didn't make it on. Hearing your favorite band on the radio just when you needed it. Making plans that started and ended with getting into the car and driving. Stepping outside to find the night had never been clearer, the air never purer.
         Lena thought of her best friend, trying to deal with death for the first time, feeling that she would fold to the challenge and doing far better than anyone expected. She thought of Brown, trying to channel his pain where it might do some good, only to find that he was hiding the suffering, not removing it. Thought about Donald, the deceased, about how he had died and how he never would know just how much people cared, if only because he refused to see.
         And then there was Tristian.
         The pictures were in a hastily arranged pile in the center of the table. Absently, Lena reached forward and dragged them toward her, her fingers trying to keep the pile intact and only really succeeding in leaving photograph droppings all over the table. With one hand she sorted through them. To her they might as well have been abstract art. There might have been meaning there, but she couldn't grasp it. Photo after photo offered coldly foreboding structure, art designed by computer, what might have emerged had you programmed the exact dimensions of every element of every fine sculpture and every classic painting into a robot and told it to make something new.
         Lena wondered with no small amount of amusement if Tristian had taken the pictures in some indirect, shy attempt to impress her. Like ringing a girl's doorbell and leaving flowers on the stairs, but disappearing before she opened the door. A silly schoolboy offering. But as much as Lena tried to laugh it off, she couldn't help but be flattered. And as she pieced through the pictures, that feeling gently turned to a sort of a wistfulness. She felt as if she was seeing the world through Tristian's eyes. A world she'd never touch. But he had tried to share it. In his way. The only way he knew how. Because he wanted to. Because it mattered to him.
         The last picture in the set was different from all the others. It didn't have any of the grandiose claustrophobia of the previous photographs, no sterile angles and blocky machines with no discernible purpose. It was just a picture of space. Of the stars. There was a slight reflection, maybe of a pointing finger, that suggested he had found a window somewhere and hadn't been able to resist the opportunity. She was amazed to see how utterly black appeared with no pollution to give the darkness depth through shimmering haze, to make the stars twinkle when all they really did was shine. There were no constellations that she recognized, giving the picture the ambiance of a class project, black construction paper punched with tiny holes, and a boy with a flashlight standing behind it.
         But in the center was a star that looked just slightly brighter than the rest. No different from any of the other coldly shining specks, just maybe a tiny bit brighter. And for the first time, Lena thought she knew what she was looking at.
         Staring at it, she couldn't help a small smile. Tristian was a good person. However frustrating or dense he might be, that was the least you could say about him. Thinking of him, it reminded Lena of what Brown had said before. About what he hadn't done. And what did to make sure that nothing happened. And she thought about Tristian again.
         Her smile faded, replaced with a frowning pensiveness. Forgetting, she took a sip of her coffee, instantly realizing her mistake and just barely managing to swallow it with a disgusted face, if only to avoid spitting it all over the table. Getting up, Lena went and poured the remainder into the sink before rinsing the cup out and leaving it in the sink.
         Halfway back to the table, Lena stopped. She looked at the picture, frowned again. All of a sudden she came to a decision.
         Crossing over to the phone, she picked it up and dialed, surprised at how familiar the number felt. Maybe some patterns are inevitable. Back to the wall, Lena listened to it ring for a long time. She bit her lip gently, let it ring some more, longer than she normally did. Finally she hung it up. The click was abnormally loud in this crystal quiet.
         Folding her arms over her chest, she looked down at her feet. Out of the corner of her eye she could sense the photograph, begging for her attention. In her head she could hear Brown's voice, telling his story and grinning through his pain. In her mind she pictured a phone in an empty house, chiming over and over again.
         Where are you? she thought to no one, about nothing in particular. Where do you go?
         It would be a long while before Lena, lost in her silent reflections, would move again.

If We're Quiet This Night Might Go On Forever

         One night I woke up at three in the morning, suddenly. Disoriented, I sat up and looked around and saw only darkness. Darkness and vague shapes and some day-glo floating numbers that meant nothing to me. I had a distant impression that I was somewhere familiar but I had no idea where.
         I went back to sleep without ever really figuring it out.
         When I try to imagine heaven, that's the best I can do. Waking up somewhere vaguely familiar, but having no idea where you are or how you got there or what it all means.
         It's weird when someone dies who you met but didn't really know. They go from appearing in your life at random six month intervals to never appearing again. Going from you rarely see them to you'll never see them. So you don't really get a sense that anybody died, just that you're never going to see them again. Which isn't the same thing. I've met people who I'll never meet again. They don't feel dead to me. But I suppose they might as well be. Isn't that a strange logic?
         One day they're here, but it doesn't matter. The next day they're gone and you don't feel any different. I don't know what it means. I'm trying to explain but the tools aren't there.
         What am I supposed to do? Stay silent?
         But if I have to speak, what the hell should I be saying?
         Maybe I don't need to say anything at all.
         Nobody wants to listen. Nobody needs to listen.
         So why do I keep trying?
         Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that I care. That I'm not just pretending.
         But I don't want to do this. So I should say I'm just faking it.
         But I don't want to think that I'm pretending. So I should keep going.
         Regardless, I stumble on anyway.
         I think it was better when I couldn't think of anything to say at all.

Sometimes I Mean Things I Don't Say

         Here's a table.
         On it are scattered the assorted knick-knacks of a man's life. His wallet, some keys (two for the house, one for the car, one other he's forgotten the use for), a plastic card with his name and picture on it, loose change (two quarters, two dimes, a nickel and eight pennies), a thick book that was once popular several years ago, a slim book that was never popular with anyone (he's not sure why he bought it himself), two clippings from two newspapers on the same subject
         and a piece of paper, creased and worn from being folded over and over again, the writing still legible, even if you can't read it. But you aren't supposed to.
         Here's a man.
         He's standing over his table, still wearing his jacket, like he's recently come in from the cold and can't believe he actually has. He's staring at the piece of paper, as if all his thoughts could make it disappear.
         The man is staring at it very intently.
         His breathing is soft and very, very nervous.
         One hand is touching the paper, gently, gingerly.
         He's not moving.
         At one point a voice said to him, You know there's nothing I can do to stop you. Suddenly he can't remember who said it or why it was said. And he'd very much like to.
         So here's the paper.
         Here's the man.
         The man is staring at the paper.
         And he's not moving.