Notes for a story

--In the swell of evening,

all is space and more space.

Crickets go darting the night

to alliterate a face. They scree

a name there are only broken

vowels for, broken words,

broken music. Absence,

- Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Burning Houses

In my heart, a foreshadowing. In my heart, a premonition. In my heart, a question, unasked. In my heart, a heart, sinking.

This evening, this book. This evening, its unassuming spine caught my eye. I wasn't looking for it; I had long stopped looking for it.

Now, my finger traces this book's cover. I leaf through its pages. I allow my eyes to linger along its lines, parsed into shorter lines. I allow my eyes--but only for a while. Holding this thin volume is both uplifting and heartbreaking. Bittersweet, extremely so. Opening it felt a little like sacrilege. How precious our friendship is. How fragile. It rests on the hinges of you and I. I break a little, grasping it.

You had once told me, smiling and sad, how you could never seem to win the race against things that find their way to me. I trail, too, dear one. But you already know this.

I think of this book, at rest in your shelf. My heart breaks into little pieces.

I think of the conversations we had. I think of the conversations we never had. I think of the conversations we will never have. I think of your pain and the silence with which you cloak it. I think of your suffering and all the unnamed distances that separate me from it.

I think of the things you taught me--how to write a story, how to un-write a story. How does one write a story?

I am certain I will end up writing you a story--I have known this for a long time. I do not know how it begins; I only know how it will end.

In the story, this book will remain in your shelf.

My heart sinks.