All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker

“I just wanted to show you that sometimes things survive despite the harshest of odds.”

Saint wanted to ask what it was like, to lose the thing that defined you. But perhaps she knew: it left you someone else. A stranger you had no choice but to tolerate, and see each day and feel and fear.

“If you ever get the chance to make someone smile, or better yet, make someone laugh, then you take it. Each and every time,”

At ten years old he realized that people were born whole, and that the bad things peeled layers from the person you once were, thinning compassion and empathy and the ability to construct a future. At thirteen he knew those layers could sometimes be rebuilt when people loved you. When you loved.

“Okay is the preserve of the uninspired, Patchwork. I’d rather live and die at the extremes than exist in the middle.”

His skin was not his. It itched him, the wounds he would not let heal because he worried they would leave no scars at all.

And I wonder what exactly a mistake is. A thing we should not have done, right? But if learning is built on trial and error there can be no mistakes, only rungs on a ladder to someplace better.”

“When it comes to marriage, love is merely a visitor over a lifetime. Respect and kindness, they are the true foundations.

“People talk about one life…one chance. But I reckon a single life is made up of a dozen or more roles and responsibilities. I can count the versions of myself like friend and foe. Mistakes are the detours that remind you of the true way, Saint. To love and be loved is more than can ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.”

“Anger is misplaced fear,”

“The bad are the few, but often they shout louder than the many. Don’t mistake silence for weakness.”

civil disturbance implied civility to begin with.

“Sometimes people reserve so much of themselves. It’s like saving a fine wine for an occasion that never materializes.”

We all tell you to move forward, but where exactly is forward? There’s no other place we can go. To face the past is to momentarily turn your back on what is now. And when you do that, you miss so damn much.”

“You don’t cry because it’s over, you smile that it happened,”

“Time changes our ability to view the things that hurt us.”

She would play that moment back and wonder at a universal network of fate, each decision rippling out from the wings of a butterfly, searching a grid of pattern that had been laid in another life. She would wonder if it would have made a difference to any of them.

“Maybe when we pray we’re not asking for intervention. We’re just reminding ourselves of the things that matter. You screw up and ask forgiveness of yourself. Someone loses their way, and you search your own mind for the guidance to help them.”

“I once heard that there ain’t much more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.”

Saint knew that for some it was written in the stars that no matter how hard they fought their road did not lead somewhere good.

To love and be loved was more than could ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.