A Sea of Unspoken Things

by Adrienne Young

I could still clearly remember the nothingness that had seized my body as the woman’s words buzzed against my ear. Like every inch of empty space in the universe had hollowed me out. It was still there, a chasm that had no end, no edges.

The tightness in my chest twisted. Ashes. There was no way I could begin to conceive of that. How was it possible that Johnny, everything he was, every memory he had, every thought and feeling, was now just…dust? How could that be when he was still here, alive in the air around me?

It was a skipping rock on the surface of my mind, taking me from one thought to the next.

Micah shook his head. “No. I’m made of this place.” It was such a simple way of saying it, but the meaning was anything but. That’s what Johnny had always believed, too. That we were made in the dark. Forged from the shadows of this forest as creatures that were created to survive only here. I’d felt that, too. In fact, I was sure that was what was wrong with me. Why I’d never been able to feel like I belonged anywhere else.

That was the way of grief, I was realizing. It was a barrage of pain that was so unbearable that it made you numb. And then out of nowhere, something made you feel again and the cycle started over from the beginning.

What could we possibly say? I couldn’t even pretend to know how you could take a whole life, a whole person, and put it into words. Goodbye is a lost language. A silent one.

Maybe we were made in the dark, like Johnny said. But we’d found a way to create our own kind of light.