Grave Matter

by Karina Halle

“Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others” DOSTOYEVSKY

me. I try to stay silent when I first meet people, trying to figure out how to wear my mask, what kind of person I need to be for the conversation.

Life has a way of conditioning you, and when you’ve gone to the school of hard knocks, you expect those knocks each time.

“We have a saying here,” she says softly. “Don’t try to change the lodge. Let the lodge change you.”

When I was eight years old, I decided my goal in life was to become a mad scientist. Not just any scientist but a mad one.

See, boys are allowed to be mad scientists. But when women do it? We’re simply labeled crazy. And even at eight years old, I knew there was a difference.

Grief is funny like that. It lives alongside you, sometimes in silence, and then a random thought, or memory, or smell will punch through you like a fist, your bleeding heart in its grasp, and you have to relive it all over again. I often think of grief as a cycle from which there is no escape, an ouroboros, a snake of sorrow eating its tail.

Standing beneath the cedar, lit only by the burning ember of a cigarette, is a shadowy figure. I can feel their eyes on me, even though I can’t clearly see who it is. They watch me, unashamed, unabashed. Until they slowly turn and walk away. And only then do I recognize him. Kincaid.

But he is my doctor. I am his patient. He is my teacher. I am his student. He says he’s the one keeping me safe. But every moment I’m with him, I feel I’m one step closer to danger.

“Because you are my future, Syd,” he says, his voice low and gruff. “Because that’s all there is. The past doesn’t exist anymore. Only now and tomorrow is what does. And I want you—now and tomorrow.”

“I’m staying for you, sweetheart,” he says, grabbing my hand and holding it up to his mouth, pressing his lips against my skin. “I’m burning up for you. You’re my fever, Syd. No cure.”