the sun was still shining but the day was finally ending. orange sunlight shined over the swaths of land before us and as it slowly set i was reminded of how lucky i felt. lucky because i’d finished at least three days work that afternoon and could relax this weekend, lucky that i hadn’t driven to the bank yesterday and been stuck in traffic two and a half hours while the fire department tried to get a couple out of their obliterated F150, luckier that i hadn’t left for the bank a few minutes early and been in the same position as the truck. i felt lucky for the ability to never work a day in my life regardless of the job i might be holding, i felt lucky to have this sunset right before me every evening, i felt lucky for the privilege of missing it sometimes when i don’t feel like going outside. i was consumed with a wave of all-encompassing luck and what i felt the most lucky for was a moment with you. we both love the porch, we’ve appreciated it for years. sometimes i can’t remember the first time we sat on this porch, lately i can’t remember the last time we were here together. this doesn’t upset me, it doesn’t frustrate me, i’m wearing myself down to a small dull nub to prove a point to men and women that i’ve never met and you have a planet to conquer. in the past we sat here and spoke for hours into the night, long after the sun set and the hot day was replaced by a cold and bitter night, while crepuscular creatures shrieked over the sound of wind chimes that never seemed that loud during the day we’d talk and we’d talk and we’d laugh at the moon and laugh at the wind and we’d laugh at ourselves for laughing so much and we’d tell each other that we wished we could do this more often. those nights seem like a millennia ago. something changed or we did because after countless nights of discussion and laughter we stopped speaking. no identifiable reason for it no hidden resentments that finally came to a head one evening, nothing, we just stopped. we’d still sit and we’d still watch and we’d still listen to the sounds in the night but we never spoke, we’d just be still, together. something felt different tonight. i felt like you wanted to say something. you weren’t looking at me but so much so that it felt forced, it felt obvious. i spoke first, i think i usually do. i couldn’t decide what to talk to you about so i just asked the only question i’d been thinking of since you sat down.

“Do you think we’ll get to do this again”

you looked at me for the first time since you arrived and for a moment i thought i’d said something to upset you. i was moments away from reprimanding myself when you grinned at me like a recalcitrant schoolchild that got away with something monstrous moments before. instinctively, i smiled back. almost immediately, we were laughing. through the wheezing and snorting you looked at me again and said

“it’s been months since we’ve both been able to do this and the first thing you ask me is when we’ll do it again! doesn’t it ever get exhausting? spending so much time thinking about what comes next?”

i smiled and remembered how it felt to speak with you.

“I don’t know if it’s exhausting because i don’t think i can imagine an alternative."

“see, there you go - you’re thinking about what comes next when you stop thinking about what comes next. i think you’d drive yourself insane if you had the time to do it.”

i tried to change the subject but failed so you kept talking.

“do you remember when the two of us met up at that Farm-inspired Cocktail Competition and you were lying to everyone about not doing drugs? i think most people were fooled but i always knew, you just always looked so obvious. but part of your current schtick was that you weren’t drinking, to everyone around you that had seen you get marginally addicted to everything for almost a decade - it was a welcome change. granted nobody knew you were still absolutely slamming pharmaceuticals and clearweb benzo analogues but that doesn’t matter. to everyone else, and to me, you thought, you were sober. you hadn’t wanted to get stop getting high, but you did want to move. i think moving to you was something you thought would effectively allow you to stop getting fucked up without actually thinking about it. regardless, you’d been telling everyone for weeks that you stopped drinking because you wanted to focus on learning Cantonese, you swore you were going to move to Hong Kong, and you felt like learning Cantonese over Mandarin would help you appear like more of a local to the Chinese people. naturally you didn’t ever move to China but you did get surprisingly good at speaking Cantonese. do you remember how to now? if i spoke Cantonese could we have an entire conversation right now? sorry im losing the story. anyways we met up at the competition, i still have no idea why you went to a cocktail competition if you were telling everyone that you were avoiding drinking, but anyways, you showed up with someone else but the two of us ran into each other and we were both a little bored so we started walking around. while we were walking, we kept passing cocktails and i kept watching your mouth water. you told me you’d been “off everything” for a little over a month and i smiled at you and immediately we understood each other. i told you that the best way to stop doing the addictive ones is by drinking. no one ever seems to mind a person that’s drinking too much, especially if they’re young, and it’s easier to hide than you’d imagine too. you thanked me and smiled and pretty quickly, you were hammered and the people who knew you were frustrated but not surprised as theyd seen this before. do you remember?”

my face was red and i didn’t want to talk to you about this anymore. i stood up and told you that yes I remembered but that I didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t know whhy I stood, it wasn’t to intimidate and it wasn’t to leave i just didn’t want to hear anymore.

i looked at you again and I asked you to tell me something different. tell me something i don’t remember anymore. you looked frustrated at first then understanding then sorry then you started speaking.

“you and i were sitting on the beach. it was the middle of january and the water was freezing and the tide was way out. we stood on the beach with our toes in the sand and i asked you what you thought happened when you die. you told me that you prayed every single night about it and you hoped it wasn’t anything at all. you wanted death to be warm and all-encompassing nothing. you didn’t want to see the world once you left it you didn’t want to go haunt someone that had wronged you, you jst wanted endless sleep. when i asked you why you wanted something so lifeless something so finite you told me it was because you couldn’t understand the concept of eternity, it just didnt register for you. you’d turn down something good and perfect and whole and loving for the rest of time because you can’t understand it. i started crying when you told me and you looked so confused. to you it seemed so normal but to me it was so wrong but still i couldn’t shake the feeling that you were right and that all we’re doing and all we’ve done adds up to nothing. you saw me looking nervous and you told me that i didn’t have to tell you if i didn’t want to. do you remember that day? that was the day i realized what i was looking for, it took me another few years to really find it, but that was the day i knew. are you listening?”

before you’d finished speaking i was asleep. this had happened a few times before too, but typically you woke me up. not this time. the cold morning winter woke me up a few moments later and you were gone. i searched the home i searched the fields and you were gone. i continued sitting on the porch and listening to the chimes and before i knew it i was missing you and wondering about when i’d seen you last. when the sun came up i hadnt seen you in years and i wondered if we’d have another chance to watch the sunset together sometime.