After Light

"I'll go through the valley if you want me to..."

Resurrection is easier than you think.

The resurrection, that is, of things you'd rather were kept buried. Take a shovel, dig under boulders, in a desert four continents away, keep it from ever seeing daylight, that's what you'd like to do. And when life takes over - work, a dear friend thanking you for making her happy, a handsome stranger's smile, two pounds lost in a week, your mother's giddy, girlish laughter - you forget. You're able to live. Really, truly live.

But every now and then, in a city so small you're bound to bump into ghosts and demons, two-headed monsters and various manifestations of your past, you also suffer. It's as though your tongue had been cut out, your limbs cast in stone. You dissipate. You, in some small way, die. It's inverse resurrection - you are inducted unto death, unto dying. How else to carry out this faltering? You let it run its course. You hold onto a tree, a boat, a bowl of fudge, the man you love, just so the tide won't wash you away.

When you bump into an old friend whom you haven't seen in ages, you're glad to see he's doing well - then you remember what kind of person you were when you first met him. He's changed: this tattoo-sporting musician, who cursed like a sailor and drank like a fish, has become a happily married man, with a beautiful son who adores him and three thriving businesses to his name. Of course, you've changed too: there are lines on your face where there weren't before, you've lost weight and you don't smile as often as you used to. You are older, and wiser, the sadness you've come to know like a sister diminishing day by day,

So are you happier? Yes. You tell yourself, Yes. Yes, Of Course. Yes? Yes. Oh, Yes.