A Cosmology of Monsters

by Shaun Hamill

Noah, there’s no such thing as a happy ending. The songs, books, and movies with “happy endings” all stop at the moment of triumph. They don’t tell the whole story. Only the old tragedies tell the truth. Beowulf triumphs over Grendel and his mother, only to fall fighting a dragon. Gilgamesh loses his best friend. Achilles, too. Everyone dies in Hamlet. This is the whole truth. There are, however, good stopping places. I made the mistake of traveling past mine, is all. I’m like spoiled milk stuck in the jug. I need to pour myself out and move on. I need to be free to move through eternity and infinity, to spend a century on Brin’s breast, listening to her heart pound, and an aeon tucking you into bed, your eyes bright with love and trust. I’ll spend a decade watching Sydney dance, Dad making Mom laugh. I’ll have eternity with my greatest hits. That has to be what’s inside the church. It has to be the answer. We can’t make new happiness past a certain point, but we can linger in past joy forever, perfectly captured with the rememberer’s eye.