The Safekeep

by Yael van der Wouden

She thought that might have been joy, or something like it. Something that feels sad as much as it feels like love.

What was the worth of happiness that left behind a crater thrice the size of its impact.

“And now? What will you do with me now?” Isabel’s answer came from a hidden place, and the words had folded and folded in on themselves over the course of days and so now they came out warped and rough, barely legible: “What will you let me?”

She had held a pear in her hand and she had eaten it skin and all. She had eaten the stem and she had eaten its seeds and she had eaten its core, and the hunger still sat in her like an open maw. She thought: I can hold you and find that I still miss your body. She thought: I can listen to you speak and still miss the sound of your voice.

That’s what happens when people die. They take themselves with them and you never ever find out anything new about them ever.

you can have anything. All of it. Or not, if you don’t want it, or me, if you will. Will you?” She said, “Have me? Will you have me?” She said, “Have me. Have me.”