Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

by Alison Espach

Dad said we were already doomed—our bodies were practically half-plastic now.

Why would you say that? Why would you say “fuck” when there are so many other words in the English language? Did we even know how many words there are in the English language?

I had no idea there were people in this world that wanted to fuck the president of the United States. It didn’t sound right. It sounded like a crime. Like something I should tell Mom about, but Mom already knew. Mom was fine with it and Dad was even happy about it. What?

Why wouldn’t God just make everybody a heart?”

“You know what they always say about the people who run for office?” Dad said, when he finally spoke. “The best people never do.”

He nodded. Billy, he would have given me anything, I knew. He would have given me his skin if I were cold. If I asked for it. But he couldn’t ever give me the one thing I wanted, which was him.

“I compartmentalize it,” he said. “I put it in a box, in some tiny corner of my brain.”

I imagined this little box, a tiny, practical coffin. One the Amish might use.

“Because you have to go on,” he said. “You have...

And that’s what I was like in Europe—in love with everybody by the time the night was over.

“Can dreams still be dreams if they’re so affordable?” I asked. “Apparently,” Ray says. “High-end heavily discounted dreams.”

Chicken was the sensible choice, made by two people who are trying to live comfortably, forever.

I used to sit up at night, saying your name, waiting for you to appear before me, waiting for you to turn into Kathy again. Waiting for you to say something. Just one little thing. A simple “hello” would have sufficed.

But it was only silence that followed. And this silence made me feel so stupid. Your silence,

it has always been the most perfec...