Christmas Day. The morning after.
As the last snow of the year fell, calmly coating over the battered streets outside – the bodies, the burnt wreckages, the still hot bullet casings – the morning brought no greater certainty beyond a tense stalemate. By sunrise, the phone lines were down, along with the internet, so I had to rely entirely on whispers and word of mouth to understand where things stood. From what I gathered, the government did flee oh, wonderful, the censors are back in full swing, will I be able to say anything at all?

Rebels managed to breach the walls nope, okay.

How about, enough of the rebel leadership, despite managing to take everything between the East and the Government Sector, decided to sue for peace – much to the dissatisfaction of the hardliners – due to the rest of the national army that now surrounded the Capital? Okay, I suppose we’re only allowed to discuss the “good news.”

Here’s the bottom line, which hopefully doesn’t get censored: there was no clear winner. Until the end of the year, a fragile balancing act would commence, with the city in effect split in two. But that morning, I had an altogether different battle on my mind.

Sam’s room had not changed since the last time I was there, over a year ago: a queen size-bed, haphazardly made in a rush before he left; a pervasive, ridiculous collection of books, from Shakespeare and Dostoevsky to writing tutorials and rhetoric guidance, spilling out onto the floor from the sturdy bookshelf behind the said bed; his wardrobe door not quite fully closed because of how small it was for all the coats and jackets he owned; a window with faded curtains, streaks of grey light falling on a desk he managed to get on an online marketplace for dirt-cheap, but one that was oh so him (light brown oak, a little engraving on each drawer, a sense of history and familiarity to it passed on from generation to generation). Even the last book he read – The Plague – was still open exactly on its final page. Time has not moved here; it existed merely as an omnipresent guardian outside the door, one that, until today, was painted over and shut with a key, unopened.

Today, though, I had to disturb that peace. Not quite sure of what I was looking for, I rummaged through the drawers, delicately ensuring I didn’t upset the careful equilibrium that had established itself. Eventually, I found an old, time-stained purple hoodie. It was one of those items most of us would leave behind when moving houses: the printing was nonsensical and worn out; the colour was fading into, if you’re polite, a dark royal-purple dye; and the utility of it all – that is, actually keeping you warm – was subpar at best (there may have been a hole somewhere I didn’t notice, I didn’t bother to check). As a fashion statement, it was useless; as a piece of clothing, subpar. Yet it was less of a utility item and more of a keepsake, a phantom, of a person, a reminder of the hours, days, years one has lived through it, intact in its outline, hollow on the inside, carrying their smell, the mould of their body within it, the essence of someone who was here only yesterday. So recent it all seemed, there was an unopened pack of Myrollboros stuck in the front pocket. Smiling at fate, seeming to have had the last laugh at me, I thought it would do just as well for what I needed to do.

Despite its discomfort, I am sure you can see why I chose to wear it when I finally visited him for the first time since… well, you know.

I guess you deserve to be told plainly by now, even if I suspect you’d figured me out already: Sam’s been gone for a year now. And I want to emphasise ‘gone’ here; when we were laying him to rest, it was more symbolic than anything else – there was no body to bury, no ashes to scatter, nothing. One day, we received the news, with no specification of what happened, the police just said he was ‘dead’ – not ‘killed,’ not ‘murdered,’ not ‘gunned do OH COME ON

The point is, it was neutral, with no way to say if there was intent behind his passing. The day after the December bombing God, fuck, okay, the December ‘incident’ that I first opened with, or whatever we call it nowadays, was the last time I saw him. A week later, and the day after another attack happened down South, at the border, bigger than even whatever was happening in the Capital at the time, we got the news from the police. I couldn’t possibly comment on whether there is any correlation, but knowing Sam, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was connected to it all, somehow. Always the stronger-willed one of us two, defiant even in his final moments, the bastard.

In a sense, it was easier to say he was gone – how can you believe he was dead if you haven’t even seen the body? I was more surprised we were allowed to ‘bury’ him to begin with, given the politics of the day and all.

The ceremony was nice, quiet, but packed – it felt like half the people I’ve ever met came down to say their goodbyes. For all I knew, it was. That didn’t make seeing his mum any easier. Though we didn’t speak much, she asked what her son was like in those last few months, when she didn’t see him all that often. I obliged, saying he was the best friend a guy could have. Those were all the words we’ve exchanged then, or since – I’m pretty sure she moved away since.

I hope she’s okay. God, I hope she’s okay.

The other complication was that we couldn’t ‘bury’ him back home, up North, the police ensured that much, so the symbolic funeral – if you can call putting whatever personal effects we could find inside a tiny stone box – happened close to where his mum lived at the time, in a little columbarium in a sleepy northern neighbourhood on the edges of the Capital, within the third metropolitan zone. Ever since, I had consciously avoided the area, even if I had a delivery scheduled there; however, this Christmas was different. And although it was a bit of a trek with the stalled trains (which the government miraculously managed to keep running, even with rebel control over parts of the city), the subsided weather allowed me to slip by and catch a train from Shoreditch, above our office, relatively smoothly.

Turning the corner from the overground stop, the hollowed-out skeleton of the columbarium looked back at me, stoic as ever, unmoved by either the wind or the history of it all happening around us. Rows after rows of little niches, stacked on top of one another like postal boxes, stared at me with no escape. It wasn’t exactly a busy destination on most days, but it looked even more abandoned now, as it stood amidst a city in turmoil, and the few other people that were here with me quietly moved in the corners of my eye within seconds, nothing more than fragments of my own imagination for all I know. One might even say, for all intents and purposes, it was like a graveyard (come on, I can get a pity laugh, surely).

When I made my way to the back, navigating to the required row (arranged in a neat, systemised, alphabetical order you’d expect from a final resting place in this day and age), I had to take a moment before continuing to the niche I was looking for. Like I said – like Lena emphasised – it’s been a year; the thought alone made my stomach twirl, almost puking. But it had to happen, I told myself; and so, I mustered the will and stepped to the middle of the wall with the letter K, running my hand through the engraving.

Samuel Xxxxxxxxx: Son, Friend, Fighter. 200X-202X.

Simple and to the point, just as he always liked. He was never one for funerals, the thought alone causing him great discomfort, preferring instead to focus on weddings and birthdays, so it was fitting, I suppose, for it all to not have any pomp to it. Even so, I wished we’d splurged on something a little fancier, like golden letters, or maybe a bit of marble, something within that realm, rather than just stone and bronze, pretty and simple as it may have been. It felt wrong not to have done so now.

Running my fingers to find the locking mechanism, activated by a simple fingerprint scan of a select few, the niche released itself like a sealed vacuum bag. Inside, a small collection of items, all too familiar to me by know: his favourite fountain pen; his antique lighter that he never got around to fixing; a journal he kept on him at all times, weathered by time, but still holding it together; his favourite perfume, one he insisted on wearing just about every day, however banal the tasks ahead were, about a third of liquid still in the bottle; a dried out, preserved daffodil in a little airtight bag; an unopened letter from Lena, her careful cursive slightly smudged by a stain of a dried up tear; and, above all of them, a slightly crumpled up photo of him and a group of friends back from our early uni days, including me (Sam wasn’t one for solo photos, but his mum liked how happy and “alive” he looked in that one, so she went with it).

I felt my stomach curl once more, just as my chest tightened, the unbearable weight of it all hitting me. There he was, a person who had meant so much to me; there he was, in a collection of effects one would consider so mundane they wouldn’t bother to look at them twice outside of this terrible context; there he was, not even a headstone, barely anything to say goodbye to.

The part that makes it so difficult, and what had deterred me for over a year at that point, is that I never found out just what exactly happened. I’d like to believe my theory that he went out doing something noble, something… something good – however misplaced the methods, he always, always, had his heart in the right place. But truth be told, that morning when he sat me in his car and asked for that personal delivery, we hadn’t spoken properly in a couple of months. Sometime around September, maybe October, he and Lena ‘broke up,’ probably for a hundredth time, only difference being that this one felt more real, somehow. After it’d happened, he’d come back home early in the morning, without so much as a greeting, and just shut himself off in his room. We’d chat occasionally, of course – it was hard not to when you shared a flat – but our conversations were surface-level at best. When we’d run into each other occasionally in the office or on the way to the job, the most that would happen was we’d exchange a nod and go about our schedules. And yet I thought we were still fine, I was doing my thing, he was doing his; I guessed we both just got caught up in the every-day of it all, even if I blame myself endlessly for not being a better friend and checking in on him more often. But I thought that was the good, right thing to do: he was grieving, and I didn’t want to interfere.

Yet, the darker part of my mind, one that I don’t like to peer into too often (and haven’t, really, for a good year until coming back to writing all of this down for you), worries that Sam, just as me, just as so many others in this city, this country, this whole God-forsaken world, was sick with what he called Decembrism. It’s not a real diagnosis, don’t bother looking it up, just something he said in a conversation, on one of those nights he’d have just the right amount to drink to be poetic. The details of when, or how, or why he said it are hazy at best, but the definition – oh, that’s not something you can forget. In Sam’s own words, paraphrasing as little as possible, Decembrism was:

“The terrible, all-enveloping dread we each carry in our lives, as the world moves on into a different, scarier, undeniably worse direction, and we all look in horror and pretend it’s fine;

“That tingling sensation under your throat at the end of another year, looking back on the departing three-hundred-and-sixty-five days you’ll never get back, superimposed on your life as a whole, and feeling empty, nothing of value to show for it, the elusive ‘something more’ always out of reach;

“The desire to tear everything down – burn it all if you must – to start anew, with horizons visible in every direction, but no genuine will to follow through on it for fear of hurting, or inconvenience, or the chains of everyday holding us back;

“A point of no return, faced again and again, year in, year out, where the only definitive answer to fate’s riddle – ‘what comes next?’ – can be nothing else, but oblivion.”

That’s what Decembrism was to him; that’s what Decembrism was to so many of us who, either by luck or attrition, carry ourselves through life year in, year out; that’s what Decembrism was to those who, with odds ever not in their favour, crack underneath it all.

But it would never take him, I’d tell myself, it just couldn’t – he was too stubborn, too goal-oriented to let it happen like that. What ultimately did him in, if you’d ask me, was that it was never enough for Sam just to be happy, condescending as this may come off; he could never accept the way things are, for there was always something else to strive for, to dream of, to refuse to compromise on. The ‘here and now,’ in whichever shape it was served up, was but a cage; a better tomorrow – always the goal, even if, in the end, it may cost him his life. He was so proud of his unwavering assurance in his righteousness that he could never hide what was in his heart; it had to be on his sleeve, to hell with what others thought or might think. He was an inspiration and a true friend; and I, in my infinite stupidity, was not there for him.

And now, as I look at his niche, effects scattered around it, remembering all the things he said, that’s all that’s left of Samuel Xxxxxxxxx, son, friend, fighter, and not even a body to bury – just a little post-box, in a crumbling, state-mandated columbarium, full of things he held dearly once, separated from him through time and space. Come to think of it, it’s been confirmed that, because the suicide rates have been so high in the last ten years, the government sometimes harvests the organs of people who kill themselves

[REMOVED]

 THIS SECTION HAS BEEN MARKED AND INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK BY THE ORDER OF RCC AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE

Fuck you. I mean, fine, fine, but fuck you. Keep your secrets, you evil bastards.

My knees swelling, I wiped the tears – or sweat, I really don’t remember – with his hoodie, the smell of that perfume of his still lingering a year on. I couldn’t remember at that point why I even bothered coming; I guess I merely felt compelled to say my goodbyes proper, today, while it’s not too late. As I pulled out the unopened pack of cigarettes, I hesitated for a moment, as if looking for the right words – words that I knew were there, but ones that never came to me at the time I actually needed them to, words I longed for him to hear, at least indirectly, at least now, if not when they would’ve been considerably more apt.

“Hey buddy,” I sniffled, barely holding it all in, “I am sorry it’s taken me so long to say it, but I wish I were a better friend. I wish I weren’t such a selfish bastard. I wish there was a way to go back. I wish-” my voice broke for a moment, as I caught my breath, sharp, cold wind piercing my throat and lungs, “I wish this – all this – wasn’t so hard, you know? I wish just being there for each other wasn’t a test of endurance. I wish, in the terror of it all, I held on to you better than I did when it mattered most,” I paused, collecting my words back together, as if a single misplaced syllable would collapse it all like a house of cards, “This is stupid. I don’t know where you’ve gone, as you were never one for religion. But at least for my sake, I hope you know I will always be here when we reunite. Until then,” I put the pack of Myrollboros in, careful to not knock any of the items over, “Have one for me and for the road ahead. I’ll see you later,” I gently pressed the box, letting the mechanism do the rest of the work of closing itself, and stepped away, wobbling.

I’d like to say I felt at peace there and then, but the truth is that I felt no less regretful. I searched, one step at a time, pulling away from the hollowed-out halls of the columbarium, for a sense of accomplishment or renewed confidence in having let go of something that’s been omnipresent, hanging above me this entire year. But all I heard was the wind; all I felt was a shiver down my spine; and all I could think of were the ever-lingering images of my best friend in the whole wide world no longer being here, a year on, and of the life I was to live without him by my side.

Finally, I let it happen, squatting down by one of the rows and allowing the tears to flow, even as the December wind turned them to small blades cutting across my face.

I thought there and then that grief was not a feeling to sustain or fight against, not a hurdle to overcome and look back proudly upon, but an invisible sword, hanging above you, never to drop, but to always cast its long shadow, everywhere you go. You may forget about it temporarily when the sun is in your eyes, and the spring breeze gently caresses you in a way that makes you believe that all is right with the world, but the moment the sun starts to set, early as it does in December, you’ll see it again, everywhere you look, leading you back into that place where the past is not the past, but a lingering not-quite-present in all its terrible forms: a smidge in the distance you can’t quite see clearly, a blurry silhouette in the corner of your eye, a photo you took of a painting in the museum you can admire, but never see again, let alone, touch. Perhaps, the point was not to fear it, nor to embrace it; the point, always, was to learn to just be okay with it, without bottling it up, without compartmentalising it, without letting the sword ever drop.

I recalled what the Writer said to me all those nights ago, of going back inside and getting warm again, forgetting why the “ruins” were there in the first place, and how wrong he was. Whether one goes back or not, life will take its course, and the cycle will continue, and then the spring will finally come back around, whether you like it or not, and it won’t be so cold anymore, even if you choose not to return to the comfort of your home. And then, when it finally does come back around, it won’t feel so scary to see the shadow in front of you, even on the darkest nights, for the world itself will live and breathe all around you, and the daffodils would spring back up from their dishevelled state to welcome in new life, and you’ll know that tomorrow will be but another day. And even though my spring has not yet arrived, maybe that was okay. Perhaps knowing that it would, eventually, return was victory enough. It would have to be: a year of putting it off did not do me any favours.  

After sitting there for fuck knows how long, I wiped my face and regained myself. The sun was still high in the sky, and I was getting hungry. But I couldn’t quite go back home yet.

2 pm
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, not you of all people,” Archie groaned from his hospital bed, lowering the book in one of his hands, wincing as he raised himself to meet my eyes.

“Nice to see you too, Archie,” and it genuinely was, given the state in which I left him last night. He looked considerably less bloodied, cleaner overall, and refreshed. Had it not been for the multiple bandages on his torso, and head, and arms, and legs, you’d think this was nothing more than a resort for him, “How’s the…?” I wasn’t sure where to even begin – his abdomen? His head? His legs?

“Everything?” he smiled, finishing the sentence for me, “I mean, it hurts, but not so bad that I’ll die,” he glanced at the bedside table, a white cup and an unopened jello standing there, “Free refreshments are a bonus, too, but you’d hope for that, wouldn’t you, even with healthcare cuts.”

“They’re taking good care of you, then?”

“Just about. Said swung by earlier to check-in on me, gave me a ‘second opinion’ – oh, they say hi, by the way,” I let myself smile ever so slightly; it was nice to know that, if nothing else, they made it through the night, “So can’t complain. It helps we’re all ‘on the same side,’” he winked at me, not even trying to lower his voice, given other patients in the ward with him. I guess I didn’t quite appreciate, just how many people were ‘in’ on this whole scheme, at least in this here hospital. Grabbing the cup from the bedside table with another wince, his face shifted ever so slightly, “D’you end up making it to wherever you were going to yesterday?”

“I almost didn’t,” I figured it’d be best not to tell him everything, certainly not about the moment I almost did quit on my quest, but a little flair couldn’t have possibly hurt, “But I did in the end, yeah,” realising I still haven’t told him why I was going there, I added, “I saw Lena.”

“As in, our Lena?” his eyes widened, “No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Why would you do something like that, on that night especially?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I tried to smile at him, “Sam, he… Before everything, when he skipped town last year – just after 01/12 – he asked me to deliver something for her.”

“As in, he asked you to do that last year?” I nodded, “Fucking hell, you sure take delayed gratification seriously,” I didn’t have anything to say to that, tried as I might. It was true, and it was shameful, and I did not intend to fight on it, whatever reasons I’ve had, “I guess better late than never. How did it go?”

“About as well as it could’ve,” I shrugged, averting my eyes, “She’s seeing someone new, keeping herself busy. Wasn’t happy to see me, understandably, said it was… time to move on.”

“That sounds like Lena,” Archie grimaced, “She hasn’t spoken to anyone since- Well, you know,” he took a sip out of his cup, smacking his lips, “Horrid orange juice, that. Anyway, um, sorry, that’s heavy. But I can’t blame her, last year was… A lot, for everyone.”

“I suppose,” I sighed, “I almost wish I didn’t bother, but a promise is a promise. It felt wrong not to,” Archie shuffled in his bed, uneasily, a sour grimace on his face, “I visited him earlier, actually.”

“You mean, at that… God, what are those places called again?”

“Columbarium?”

“Yeah. God, I can never remember that word – ‘cemetery’ makes so much more sense.”

“Yeah, to both – at that columbarium.”

“Ah, mate, you should’ve told me,” Archie grimaced, “I could’ve tried to come with.”

“That’s okay, I was overdue for a personal visit. Plus,” I nodded at his bandages, peeking from under the gown, “You don’t seem so hot to move right now.”

“Oh, I would’ve been – and I will be – fine. I’d be dead before I let a fascist bullet kill me,” notwithstanding the redundantly obvious nature of the statement, it was true enough, I suppose, for there he was, in the flesh, still standing – or, well, at least sitting. Just as easily as he had quipped, his face suddenly turned sombre, “Hard to believe it’s been a year already, though,” he looked up at me, eyes full of regret, “I know you too were close – certainly closer than I ever was with him – so I can’t imagine it was an easy trip?”

“No, but,” ‘but’ what? “I put it off for long enough, and I guess I felt… bad? Or, well, certainly, I felt compelled enough to go. You know, I… I made a promise to him, and it’s been so long since, it just… Felt right to do yesterday, if not a week ago, or… I don’t know,” Archie didn’t answer immediately, averting his eyes for a moment.

“Can I tell you a story?” he sprang back up.

“Shoot,” I threw back.

“Poor choice of words,” he chuckled, prolonging it into a cough, which made me feel extra bad about what I said.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s-” he waved his hand at me, still coughing, “It’s fine, that was a good one. Ahem. Right. So, back in uni, around the first time I was really starting to feel the weight of everything, I found myself in a bit of a bind, you may say: it was the pre-finals season, we were all stressed as hell – peer competition, I’m sure you can imagine, is a little tough at Oxford,” that much was true, as I pictured a hundred Archies packed into the same room, all competing for attention, for that winning edge of academic validation. It was horrifying, so I suppressed the thought with a nod, “Anyhows, that. I was a mess back then, constantly getting in my head about just the smallest crap, like my life would depend on those grades. The problem, naturally, is that the world outside – oh, well, that didn’t revolve around my grades and my schedule,” he paused, ruminating on his words.

“Around the same time, a close childhood friend of mine was getting married. The ceremony was outside the country, but I didn’t have any clashing deadlines, and it was easy-ish to travel to – hell, I could fly in and out, it would’ve been like a two-day trip,” he grimaced again, as if unhappy with himself, “I didn’t go. I mean, I told her, of course, well in advance, and I even sent her a nice gift, but I never ended up going. I thought, sure, it’s important to her, but whatever I have going on, well, that ought to take priority, come what may,” he closed his eyes, shaking his head gently, “To this day, I can’t help but feel awful about it. I keep thinking back to it – that I missed her special day, not because of a clashing deadline, or because of any tangible priorities; I missed it because I was so consumed by whatever was happening to me at the time, whatever kind of person that I was becoming, that I just- I couldn’t go. I couldn’t bring myself to,” another pause. Then, “Awhile back you asked me, why I threw it all away for – well, this,” he motioned at himself, “And that incident, that was one of the many moments when I realised I just did not like who I was turning into, when I felt like whatever reward was on the other side of this horrifically difficult program, be it the world in my palm itself, it just wasn’t worth it. So I dropped out, and I sought something else to commit my life to, even if, to an untrained eye, this might appear as the quote-unquote ‘shittier hand,’” he smiled at himself as he said it, as if recognising how ridiculous the assertion was, “Cause, like, even if it is, that’s the hand dealt to me – why not play it to the best of my ability?”

“Even if you have to forfeit a better hand?”

“Even if I have to forfeit a better hand,” there was not one bit of doubt in his words.

“Did you ever talk to her again?” I asked a natural follow-up question, dismissing the déjà vu that was starting to take hold.

“What, my friend? Yeah, I did,” Archie looked up, a sentimental glimmer in his eyes, one that I saw so rarely on him, “It took me a minute to do – maybe not a year, like you did, but a good minute – but I did. And I was lucky to have a friend like her, because she understood,” he looked back at me, “But that’s what it was, fundamentally – luck. A worse- No, a different, but totally justified, different person, they’d have all the right to not be as kind to me,” he sniffled, taking another sip of the juice, “Sorry, I’m not good at this sappy shit. I guess I want to say that I understand you, Simon – I do. Life, friendships, whatever, that’s hard without the world falling apart, and we all have our reasons to be the way we are. But, like, I’m there for you, man,” he nodded at me, “Just remember that next time you decide to face it – what it may be – alone.”

“I appreciate it,” I smiled at him, as earnestly as I could, still mulling over his words, kind and unexpected as they were, without a fully realised response in sight just yet. But I had to say something, naturally, so I – stupidly, perhaps – went elsewhere, “Might be a bit hard for you to help out of jail, though, or whichever kind of gallows they’ll place you under after they arrest you for treason?”

“Oh, get bent,” Archie laughed, prolonging it into another cough; one that, despite its severity, could not stifle nor drown out the earnestness of his smile, the warmth of his voice, or even the returned smugness of his eyes.

And somehow, without ever knowing it for certain, I couldn’t help but sense that he would be just fine.

5:57 pm
It wasn’t until much later in the day, after I picked up my takeout from Lando’s (a miracle, really, they were still working – on Christmas Day? On this Christmas Day, specifically?) that I overheard a group nearby discussing of what was about to happen in the next few days: the government was going on the counterattack. All major forces available – not just a puny extra couple of thousand that were stationed in the Capital the day before – were being brought to the city. The details were scant, understandably, but what was known for sure was that the forces around the Capital would push in, most notably, in the North-East. No one knew exactly when, so take it with a grain of salt, but the word on the street (literally!) was that New Year’s would be the day because, well, you just can’t beat the symbolism of it all.

Is my disdain for the holidays starting to sound more reasonable yet?

7 pm
After a few more long hours with no internet or phone lines being up, I became bored of staring out of my window at the hubbub of activity outside. It was starting to dawn on me why no history book really focuses on just how mundane “the morning after” of revolutions, failed or otherwise, is. I was restless, despite the air of general “pause” that hung around wherever you looked. So, I decided to do one natural thing there was left in the night: I’d walk to our office, if not to see anyone I’d know, then at least to check out if anything had changed there since, well, everything of the night before.

7:28 pm
And what do you know – a lot has changed since then! And not necessarily for the better! The automatic door, usually reliably closed, was left wide open, bits and pieces of paper drifting in the wind to the outside; the windows, usually firmly securing against the elements of the street, were boarded up and shut; the neon sign, once proudly announcing the name of our (let’s be frank, not the finest, but fine-enough) establishment, was taken down – for all you knew, this was just another decrepit building in the part of town where decrepit buildings were becoming more and more common; and in front of it all, as if to complete the picture, Miranda sat on the sidewalk, her face buried in a red scarf that contrasted with her black jacket, matching red mittens holding her fogged up glasses and her beat up – but still just the right amount of sleek – vape. An uncharacteristically hefty bag was slung around her shoulder, messing up the scarf’s smooth edges. Just down the road, the military checkpoint, so threatening and imposing only hours before, was being dismantled, vandalised, dominated over by the masses, just as I began approaching Miranda.

“You didn’t turn on your location last night,” she threw without looking up at me, as if she kept the sentence on the tip of her tongue this entire time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike it at me.

“I know,” I threw back, hoping the apologetic notes in my voice came off as genuine as they truly were.

“And you didn’t call,” she looked up at me, disappointed. I grimaced back, like a chastised teenager, with nothing to say in my defence. It was uncanny, how much Miranda could channel the sternest women in my life on a whim, completing that unholy trinity of authority figures, “Oh get off it, don’t hang your head like I’m telling you off – at least you’re alive,” she puffed on her vape, no less angry, but noticeably more relaxed. I welcomed that observation like one would the sun on the darkest night.

“Are you just leaving?” I nodded at the office building behind her.

“I was actually just about to leave to check on you,” she didn’t look back as she put her glasses on and began getting up. I extended my hand to her, which she enthusiastically grabbed, pulling herself – and the considerable weight on her shoulder – up, “I haven’t heard from the boss for over a day, and with everything being down, I wanted to know if I now have to skip town and lay low,” she finally turned around, the burden of truth revealing itself in her grimace, “Seems it’s a no, but I am also, for all intents and purposeless, unemployed.”

“You and me both, I guess,” I checked my pockets for a cigarette – seemed appropriate – but of course I had none on me, “Can I hit that?” I motioned at her vape.

“You?” her eyes widened, a look of disbelief entrenching itself on her face, “No, actually, you cannot, out of pure principle!” I half-expected the response – it was probably for the best – but she smiled coyly, extending the beaten-up device to me. I took a puff – a first in many, many years – a taste of burnt mangoes biting my tongue and cheeks alongside nicotine entering my brain. It was blissful; it also tasted awful.

“I remember why I don’t vape now, thanks,” I said, handing the device back to her as she cleaned it with a handkerchief hidden in her pocket, still smiling. “Do you think this is something to worry about?” I reeled us back to the inescapable reality of our former workplace, which looked worse for wear with each passing moment.

“Besides having a job? Nah, not really,” she sounded only half-certain of her answer, “If he did what I think he did – and, at the very least, he did give me notice of how ‘the exit’ would look like – there is nothing for anyone to find. No paper trail, no digital footprint, no money to follow,” she paused, as if realising her role in everything that occurred, “I suppose we always knew a day like this would come. You must’ve realised that, too?” it wasn’t immediately clear, if the question was intended for me or herself.

“I guess,” I decided to assure her, however I could, “I just didn’t like to think about it much,” she rubbed her eyes, exhausted. I figured it’d be best to not remind her of what this means for my visa situation – assuming there still was a ‘visa situation’ at all, with everything going on, “And the whole… gun thing?” Miranda half-opened her mouth, as if about to argue back with an answer she had prepared and mulled over in her head before, but no sound came as she caught herself before even starting the sentence.

“I truly don’t know, Sema. I know the algorithm is random, and I know it has a limited number of items to choose from, but I am not the one who logs those items into the system in the first place. But I… I should have checked the list better that night,” she paused, before mustering, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I nodded, “I just want to know, do you think he,” I motioned towards the office, “Could have had something to do with it?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, retreating her face deeper into the scarf, “I guess… I guess, if anyone could know how that happened, that would be him. We’ll never know; and, perhaps, we are better off without knowing,” she looked back at me, a glimmer of confidence returning to her face, “But I mean it when I say that you shouldn’t worry about it. All records – paper, digital, whatever – that’s torched now.”

“I see,” I swallowed a pensive stone in my throat, not feeling quite fully relieved just yet, but somehow a little lighter, choosing to stop talking about that painful subject, “How is Brian feeling about it all, anyway?”

“He’s strangely relieved,” she turned back around, stepping to the road, away from the office, as if proximity changed anything. I followed suit, “I think we wanted a reason to leave for a minute now, never finding the right time, hence our constant moving apartments… God, the money we spent on that,” she smirked, a sadness lingering in the dimples of her cheeks, “He isn’t happy here, truth be told; neither, now that I think of it, was I, so this is as good of a chance as we’ll get.”

“Really? I thought that, if anyone would be enjoying the city, it’d be you!” I wasn’t sure if this came off wrong, but Miranda looked up at me, faux or otherwise, offence at my remark lingering in her eyes.

“What, because I am such a cold, ruthless, calculated businesswoman?” I was taken aback for a moment, “That’s alright, you can tell me,” pause. Then, “Actually, don’t tell me,” she waved her hand, as if assuring me she was just playing, “No, Sema, believe it or not, I wasn’t. This city, it’s… It drains you, saps you off life, slowly but surely, all the while making you believe that the money and the rhythm of it all is an adequate reward for your best years being wasted on it, you know?” she puffer on her vape some more, “And, you know, the money is good, but it’s never enough; the rhythm and opportunities are great, too, but they are never certain or good enough beyond short term. But Brian and I, we are trying to think long-term, big picture, all that,” she sighed, looking to the side, towards the now-dark towers of the financial district, “For better or for worse, this place is not a home, no matter how much we tried to make it into one. So what’s one to do in this situation, but leave?”

“You sound defeatist,” I remarked, contemplating Miranda’s words and the fact that not even the two most competent people I’ve ever known could I escaping joining a demographic of young adults who come to the Capital for a few years, made their money and got their experience, only to end up leaving under the unbearable weight of it all, and that this city – the greatest city in the world, some would remark – had proven itself once again to be nothing more than a temporary pitstop along a much longer, grander, potentially more rewarding journey.  

 “Maybe I am,” she shook her head, fixing her bag, evidently uncomfortable under its weight, “My whole life I was so certain it’ll work out; that whatever plan I coaxed up was solid, fail-proof, and that by mid-20s, at the very least, I’ll have it all figured out. Now, at 24, I just…” she looked around dreamily, off to the distance, where the fires and the shouts of the crowd intensified, celebrating their victories the night before over the checkpoint and the military in the West, “Now I just don’t know. It all seems so useless, confused, ridiculous even. And I hate it; I hate realising that my path, lengthy and uncertain as it was, seems to have turned into a noose.”

“That’s new, coming from you,” I tried to maintain an extent of lightness, to the best of my ability. She chuckled – thank God.

“I know, right? Miranda Grace Payne, the one person you never want to hear this from,” she smiled coyly, “Must really be the sign of the end times,” I smiled back meekly.

“Where will you go now?” I asked, more out of curiosity than genuine expectation of an answer. She paused for a moment, as if considering the question properly for the first time. 

“I… don’t fully know yet, to be honest,” she sighed, looking at me with exhausted eyes, “One thing’s for certain – we can’t stay here. Brian and I are skipping town through the humanitarian corridor; we will probably go back to his folks up North for a bit and get our ducks in a row. After that, who knows? At this point, I’d hop on a plane to Antarctica if it meant some peace, and quiet, and… certainty, I guess,” she looked down, as if the gravity of our conversation was finally pulling on her the same way it was pulling on me this whole time, “Come with us, at least for a bit? I can’t promise you’ll get anything more than a couch, but it’s better than whatever’s going to… or might, happen here?”

I pondered her offer, and I would lie if I said I wasn’t at least a little tempted. Sure, it came with loaded uncertainty, but it’s not like staying put offered any security either. And yet, at the same time, I just couldn’t see it – couldn’t even imagine it –what I would do after getting out. Ridiculous as it was to say, that plunge seemed almost scarier than the prospect of whatever awaited me here, at this doomed city. The one offset being, of course, that I couldn’t go anyway.

“Thank you, really, but I’ll take my chances here,” she shuddered as I said it, so I calmly raised my hand, gently patting her shoulder, “Even if I came, there’s nowhere I can go, nowhere waiting for me. I’m – I’m in too deep here, now.”

“You know that’s not true!” she cried out in desperation. Ever so slightly, tears formed on the edge of her eyes, which she wiped away in one swift motion, “What about your family, what about us? You could start again, we’ll make sure you can, we’ll-”

“Miranda,” I said, as softly as I could, “You know I can’t leave, not yet – even if I tried, the military will very likely seize me at the first checkpoint,” that didn’t sound convincing, even if it was true – unlike Archie, I had my biochip still firmly in my wrist. So, I added, “I’ll be okay. I’ll figure it out,” a faulty promise I couldn’t keep, but that was the only one I had at that point. 

We stood in silence for a moment: I, finally accepting the futility of the fight; Miranda, probably wondering what else she could say, what tactic she had not employed yet to change my mind. In the end, we said nothing, as she leaned in and gave me a hug. I never was a hug person – never was a touchy person at all, in fact – but this one was nice, one of those all-enveloping embraces that, in the moment, you don’t quite appreciate, as you don’t realise you won’t share anything like this with that person ever again.

“You stubborn idiot,” she leaned away, a hint of sadness in her smile, “You better call.”

“I will,” and I fully intended to once I got the chance.

“I mean it, Sema. If I don’t hear from you in the first week of the New Year at the latest, I am turning heaven and hell upside down looking for you,” she frowned, pointing at me insistently, “I will pull your screaming soul back to Earth, if that’s what it takes.”

“I know you will. Don’t worry – I’ll call,” before I could muster a final goodbye, her face lit up for a moment, as she opened her bag wide, finally extracting the weird envelope from it.

“Almost forgot,” she handed it to me, “Merry Christmas, even if you don’t celebrate,” it was a nice, quality paper, even if it wasn’t anything special. Handpicked and hand-packed, not mixed with others in a post office. I tore it up, as carefully as I could, with Miranda simply standing there, waiting patiently for my reaction.

A picture – or, rather, a portrait, masterfully crafted with watercolours – of a man in his twenties, smiling earnestly from centre-frame. Unbothered and relaxed, he seemed like nothing was holding him back, like every horizon was but a new and open road rather than a looming premonition, and the path untravelled wasn’t an imposing “what if?” but merely a curiosity, one that could be picked up and explored to the heart’s content. The shapes around him, evidently representing other people (but, understandably, less detailed), despite their vagueness, seemed drawn to him, gravitating to, rather than repulsed by, his inner core. In the painting, he wasn’t just a nobody in the background of it all; rather, he was the focus, not so grandiose as to come off as self-important, but no less important than a stranger on the street. And in his expression, he embraced rather than feared all the wonderful colours of life that boldly and apologetically fought against the insistent grey of every day, affirming a sense of the ever-dangerous but tempting “it will all work out” that seemed to laugh at the muted and cynical reality of it all not in spite of what he knew, but precisely because of it, embracing the simple idea that, if one was to take life for it was – triumphs and losses; hardships and bliss; terror and relief – what was the point of going on, if not with optimism, however cautioned?

That man was me, from an older picture taken during the university days – or rather, the way Miranda saw me.

And yet, despite the artistry and time, it felt like a mirror, in which I saw, unquestionably, without any ifs or buts or asides, me.

As I lingered on the eyes, on the dimples in the corners of his mouth, the light in the eyes, the simplicity of it all, I finally understood what was so painfully obvious this whole time: that the walls we build in our mind and in our heart, the justifications we put on why we are the way we are, the reasons we give for that ever-poisonous ‘nobody really cares,’ were unnecessary, and that the truth of the world was not as scary and horrible as we made it out to be; that none of us, no matter our self-imposed sense of importance or lack thereof, was truly alone, and that each and every one could be seen in a light most flattering and pleasant, despite the limitations and hurdles, the heartbreaks and scars, the complexes and flaws, as a friend, a lover, a kind stranger to talk to. And I wanted to scream from realising that the world was not a fractured, broken handful of individual islands, but simply a plateau full of lonely people – lonely people who loved each other so very much, they end up tragically locked in that stupid dance of finding reasons to simply embrace one another, as they always wanted to – whose one simple goal in life was to be seen the way that I now realised those closest, those dearest to me, did see me, and that this weight I carried, this hurt, this worry for what I was and meant, to myself and to others, was but a prison to which I volunteered without ever having committed any grander sin than anyone else around me did.

I could bawl from happiness; I could scream from realisation that the truth – foolishly! – stared me in the face this entire time; I could die from finally seeing it the way it always was.

But all of that was unnecessary, so instead, I just smiled.

“Thank you,” I murmured, hesitantly but willingly raising my arms to hug her again, but Miranda had beaten me to it, burying her face and dark hair into my jacket one more time.

I let the moment linger for God only knows how long before she finally let go and stepped away, wiping her face and regaining her composure.

“So, you like it?” she chuckled, looking up at me, a shimmer lingering in her grey eyes.

“I love it,” I confessed, looking down at the portrait again, “Didn’t realise you were such an artist?”

“Artist is overstating it a smidge. I just relieve stress, or boredom, on occasion,” she shrugged, burying the weight of talent under a mountain of humbleness, “I’m glad you appreciate it, though,” suddenly, the air broke with a hum of the drones, as we felt the wind blow through our bodies towards the former checkpoint. The crowd, jubilant until then, shifted as they scattered, a few people barking orders about the metallic winged predators above. Looking up, an entire swarm passed through the night, dispersing in various directions of the Capital, but not doing more just yet. An omen of things to come – of an impending, inevitable assault that was to arrive eventually, could not have been less subtle than this.

“You should get home,” I said, without even realising that Miranda had once again grabbed my hand.

“Are you absolutely sure I can’t change your mind?” there was a subdued desperation in her voice, even as one could tell that she was finally letting go. I couldn’t help but admire her commitment to fighting her battles, however fruitless they may turn out, to the bitter end. I smiled, putting my hand on hers.

“I’ll call. I promise. Everything will be okay,” Miranda held her gaze for a second longer, refusing to allow the futility of it all to set in, before, finally, sighing and giving me an assured nod, with which her hand had finally slipped off mine. I thought then that I should grant her a final grace – a half-victory, if you will – to try and make this all hurt a tiny bit less, “You wanna walk me back to mine?”

She looked up at me, and in her grey eyes, that same Miranda, whose face I saw oh so often on my nightly shifts and smoke breaks in the alleyway, in the breakroom and occasional trips to restaurants, in parties and about town, returned; Miranda, my handler, my guardian angel, above all, my friend, was there as if she’d never left; Miranda, who saw me not for what I feared I was, but what she knew me to be; Miranda, who would always be there for me, even if we were to never see each other again.

“That’d be nice,” was all she said, a coy smile pinching at her reddened cheeks.

9 pm
As I said my goodbyes to both Brian and Miranda, I returned to my apartment, just about as the sounds of the street outside intensified. The world would have yet another upheaval by the end of the year, and I, for better or for worse, would prefer to sit it out. Thankfully, I had just the means – and the task – to do so.

As you know – or don’t? I still have no clue, who you are – there was one last thing that came with Sam’s package for Lena: a note, addressed to me, with a simple scribble of a website address, where a blank page of a notepad lay bare, with only a succinct instruction attached at the top:

“Tell it like it was. They will listen.”

At first, I thought it was a prank, but as the year progressed, and I saw less and less of my therapist, I came back to this page more and more. And strangely, without ever receiving insomuch as a “hi,” it helped. God only knows where it’s going – or if it’ll go somewhere, with a blackout in place and whatnot – but that’s how we got here.

And so, on that night, just as I did a year ago, I got to work.

Epilogue

New Year’s Eve.
It’s been a few days since I started pulling all of this together, going over the little notes of particular nights that I first made in hopes of garnering meaning out of the grief and mundane terror that has pursued me over the course of a year and some change. The last hours of the year are upon us, just outside my window; a sense of accomplishment, or at least, resolution, seems to be in the air. Yet as I write these final sentences in what, undoubtedly, had proven to be a much longer narrative than either you or I anticipated, I am not overwhelmed with a newfound sense of purpose, like I hoped I would be; to be perfectly blunt, much like what happens when I forget my hat and gloves in these winter months, I hardly feel anything by now. Had this been any other night, I fear, this is where I’d stop.

But as I face an end to this journey – an end to this god-forsaken year – it would feel wrong to not at least try and decry something, anything at all (perhaps Sam was onto something with that whole decembrism thing after all), so I must try, at least to give you something back for all the time I took up. But how does one reflect on the end of the year – on the end of anything – when he doesn’t know what comes next? Can one truly master the will to look back and take a lesson out of anything, if there is no telling how, when – if – he will get to apply it?

When I was much, much younger, I had this elementary idea of what my life will look like: finish school, go to a university (my dream school, naturally), find a job (one that I would both love AND earn respectable money from), do something meaningful (help the strangers? Make a difference? Save the world?). But somewhere along the line, be it by my folly or the world descending into whatever the hell it is outside, my life plan became a ten-year plan; then a five; then a three; by now, it’s a “hopefully, within a year” – and that’s on a good day. No; my plan, if there ever was one, is in tatters, and I feel no less certain of what tomorrow holds than I did yesterday. But maybe that’s what it – life – is, all it ever was, all it will ever be; our agency limited not to whether we stick to a plan, but whether we choose to enjoy or detest the places we end up in; a collection of silver linings, hidden between narrowly avoided worst-case scenarios, neatly wrapped and held together by an impending, inevitable hubris of everything.

That can’t possibly be where I left it, though, surely? Even if you don’t consider me an optimist, God, this is just too defeatist. And I’m not – really, even if you don’t believe me. If nothing else, I can say with certainty I’ve no regrets, especially in telling you all of this.

Which is funny to say, considering, well, that I lied to you by omitting “the truth” at first. This wasn’t personal; I’m just a selfish bastard, as Lena had correctly said, and I thought I could get away with it by simply not telling you. Go figure, though, I’m a lousy writer who can’t bottle up his guilt. No hard feelings?

Maybe that’s it, then, one thing to take away from it for certain, however inappropriately hopeful it sounds: lie or not, someone – you! – listened; this story, this terror of being alive at the end of another year, is not just a weight atop my shoulders or a cinder block tied to my ankles; at the very least, it’s a shared testament, with you as a witness, that I did not let it sink me fully; a testament that, despite the impending doom of it all, I still breathed. And though I do not know how tonight will pan out (the drones are abuzz above my apartment once again, so overwhelmingly I had to shut my window), I am still certain, still hopeful, that no destiny is promised, and no tomorrow is ever predisposed. Perhaps, not even mine, and perhaps, that’s a blessing, after all.

I guess that would be one other lesson to discern from all this running around with a bag over my shoulder after dark: we each have a story to tell, however devoid of purpose it may appear at first, but one that only matters if someone listened. All of it, however small in comparison, however bland and non-exciting that it may have appeared, had a reason to it. And I’m thankful that you did listen, whether by choice or through our shared connection to Sam, however fleeting it may be.

I wonder, though, if it would’ve been better to run when I had the chance. Or, better yet, if I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. I dedicated more than five years to this city, more than a decade to this country, and by mere chance, it feels for nought (or, as a friend recently remarked, it feels as if this path has turned into a noose). My calling could have been hidden away just around a corner, or on a different train station, or in-between the rooms in the student halls; and something – or someone – to call home, could have been any one of these people that I have described to you; but I will never know now. Neither will you, nor will Sam.

But there is little sense in living in “what if” or “what could’ve been;” at some point, there comes a moment for us to live with choices, whether our own or made for us. It seems nigh time I found out if I can genuinely live with mine. Best one can do – best I can do – is take all the love one receives, warranted or not, and give as much of it back as he can. It may not save anyone – it certainly hasn’t Sam – but it’s gotta count for something; even for something as minute as making this entire waking nightmare of a world just a little easier to navigate, even if that love is small, even if that love doesn’t last, even if that love ends. After all, everything ends; not least of all, this fucking year.

The fire on the streets seems to be picking up, and the government couldn’t care less that it’ll be the first midnight of the new year soon – they will do everything to put this one out. Nor do the people – they will fight till the last breath. It remains to be seen which side prevails. But as much as I want to say that nothing will be the same by the morning light, I can’t guarantee that. After the things I’ve seen, I am convinced that even if the Wall itself fell tomorrow (maybe it already has? The internet blackout has not been lifted – it’ll be a miracle if all of this gets through to you in the first place), and the entire continent was to breath with renewed hope and ease in their lungs, the world might still be silent after a day or two, if that. There is not a single action that produces a lesser opposite reaction than the attempt to change the essence of being human, whatever that essence may ultimately be.

I think I’ll stop now. I’ve been sitting in front of the screen for the last week, writing and occasionally using the shitty speech-to-text recorder on my phone almost non-stop, while the events of the last few days are still fresh in my memory, so you’ll have to excuse me for being a little abrupt in the end. I don’t know what will happen come first light, but even if it is nuclear annihilation, I think I’ve had enough of all this for one life. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, my twenties and all this horror will be but a memory, and this stretch of time will merely be “the few years grandpa lived in the Capital, the dreaded and desired city where all walks of life come and go on a daily, and he would do almost all of it all over again if he could,” and all these stories will be just that: stories, rather than matters of life and death and despair and loneliness and worry and rare triumphs that felt monumental, only to dissipate in the tide of new challenges the next morning, like sandcastles on a distant shore. Maybe, if I make it out of this, I’ll send you a postcard as a follow-up to this lengthy prose. Maybe, in a year – or a few – if I’m lucky, I might even shake your hand personally on the streets of XXXXXXXXXX – if you do really live there, that is. Here’s to hoping; it’ll kill you, but at least you won’t die in despair.

All of this is for later, though. For now, I shall go to the roof, and I’ll give this city – this wonderful, awful, beautiful bastard of a city, where anyone can make it, and everyone is doomed even if they do – one last look before retiring for the night. Never actually been up there before, but tonight’s as good a night as any. Pray for me not to tumble down the stairs in this darkness, would be a shame to die so stupidly on a night like this.

But what a night it is: the sky, for a change, looks beautiful from down here, after the clouds gave way, and with the protestors/rebels/whoever having blown up the power station, the streetlamps aren’t being powered even by the auxiliary generators to preserve fuel. The local revolutionaries, self-proclaimed and officially recognised alike, had this saying, popular during the border skirmishes (and clearly taken too literally over the last few days), before the new one, about both of us seeing sunrise, took hold: “only in darkness can we see the shimmering lights of tomorrow.” To be honest, I always thought it was pretentious and stupid.

Tonight, though, I feel different – if only you could see the stars I’m looking at!

Tonight, gloomy as December is, they appear brighter than ever across a limitless sky.

Tonight, they don’t shine so indifferently on me.

END.