After you evaporated, I was left unsettled. A remarkable force of life had wrung itself dry, like water from a dirty rag. Perhaps I demanded more from life than it was capable of giving. Accordingly, I was punished.

It happened as though it were meant to happen. The morning I discovered your absence, my mind was devoid of surprise. I somehow knew that you had “evaporated”. While this notion was initially something that struck me as implausible, this is not to discount the devastation that befell me upon your departure. I stayed in the cabin for some time, my heart aching all the while, watching the glowing lump night after night. After some of the most pitiful weeks had passed, I willed myself to return to town.

I came to hate the town. I fully knew that you wouldn’t like me anymore, for this was not the version you loved. But you would understand, wouldn’t you? I came to despise the gatekeepers, the bricklayers, the starmakers, the sweets shop owners, the music man, and really, anyone with their vain gildings who had acted as though things were normal. Indeed, normalcy was cruel. I detested it. I detested the unchanging weather, cursing me beneath it. Had the sky been bluer than it already was, I might have torn it from the sky, duly angered by its apathy.

Derision followed, as expected. My long absence and serrated disposition had attracted a general distaste from the townspeople. I didn’t particularly favor them anyways; the women were obsessed with happiness and vanity, the men with sex. From a conversation I once overheard, I gathered that my vessel seemingly held no life. Accordingly, I soon found myself in isolation.

The empty years drifted along, as if clouds. I began to change. Perhaps more internally than in appearance; my face became longer, bonier, abandoning the roundness of adolescence. Eventually, I became the music man of our town. It became my duty to walk along the stone paths, in search of children to perform for. I must say, this is something that I learned to enjoy, for the children would greet me with their silly jests, laughing much like little bells.

You see, I built up my peace in the stifling worldliness of propriety like an ant amid its unquestioning colony. Few children would envy me. The small flat which I purchased—though quite old and somewhat dilapidated—was quiet much like the cabin. It was lonesome but nothing I couldn’t bear. I was keeping up with my remaining payments, and it would only take a few months to settle the dues. I’d peer through the small window overlooking the town, from which I’d discern the travelers leaving, carrying with them their swords despite their scars, wary but knowing. For all their consternation, they avoided the gaze of the austere sentinels as they exited once again, apprehensive yet proud. I found myself truly perplexed: whence did their courage arise?—for I knew no such wellspring. Perhaps it was simply recklessness that moved these individuals. Yet somehow, upon seeing their uncertain gait and quivering countenance, I was certain of their nobility. At this, I could not help but feel utterly pathetic, cowering behind the walls of my flat.

One day, as I was making my usual rounds, hauling the box around town, I happened to stop by the bridge upon noticing a strange occurrence. The river beneath had grown to a disconcerting size. The snow outside had melted by then, filling the seams of our town. Spring had arrived. On account of this, the frozen lumps thawed, turning everything in its path to water.

In a fit of panic, I dove into the river in search of our artifacts. What specifically I was looking for I cannot tell, but I felt, with the strongest conviction, that this was my duty. Of course, as one might expect, I found nothing of value. In fact, the river was so despicably clear, I was hopeless in my search. When the next swell rushed towards me, I was helplessly swept away, flailing in defeat.

After I drowned, I was carried to the sea. The water was thick but clear; it entered my orifices and took parts of me away. I started dissolving. I did not resist.

In the end, I was reduced to microscopic particles, each suspended at the mercy of the bellowing currents. I could feel the surface of the sea become the skin on my chest and the undercurrents that caressed my back. I was stretched thin along the horizon; the fish swam inside of me, the tides bashed against countless promontories, and the wind whipped the waves. A foggy listlessness is forced upon this form, for I was no longer attached to the trivialities of life—if I ever was.

As I diffused further, I found myself amongst thick swaths of black thread. Silken fibers spread through the water, tangling with my being. It was hair. It was difficult to discern their intention—whether they wanted to strangle or embrace me—for they drifted with grace at one moment and snapped taut the next: cashmere yarn at one turn, steel cables at another. And when I traced them to their source, there you were.

As if abruptly appearing at the footsteps of my heart, I was very much shaken by your figure, paralyzed, as it were. Your face was pallid; the water must have drained the colors away, your complexion now a deathly white. Shivering, you raked your fingers through the water to collect pieces of me, looking into me with eyes from which a hand reached, gripping the precipice, fully aware of the peace awaiting below. Yet you held on. In spite of your spectral facade, I discerned the spirit underneath: its essence and its incorporeal angel forever condemned to this unworthy world. Yes, you were beside me, suspended and uncertain—perhaps even fearful. To this day, I question my sanity, for I failed to restrain myself, cursing you as we knew it.

“I want to be yours, completely. As much as I want you to be mine.”

I felt everything slip away for the very last time. They would all despise me: the music, the fire, the children, the cat, the unfulfilled lives, the snow finally thawing, dripping off the roof, but most importantly, you.

And as fate finally brought her sword down, she said, “You must first collect yourself in one piece and leave everything behind. Everything. Only then can I love you. Only then can you love me. We will hold each other close and bleed into one another, but this time, we will look outwards in the same direction.”

So I did, utterly afraid much like you, as I sank, writhing in the depths of spring. Indeed, I flew into the torments of memory and the riches of uncertainty, forever despairing in the name of hope.

Last modified on 2026-02-28