We Are All the Same in the Dark

by Julia Heaberlin

“People all around here have lost bits and pieces. Arms. Thumbs. Legs. Toes. Farm equipment, war, firecrackers—they bite off stuff and you go on about your business. Out here, nobody cares.

Everything about Maggie is short. Her height, her hair, and her temper, which is usually directed in the defense of others.

Wyatt has always been a man of few words, unless he is making something up. He told me once that the lies are in the adverbs.

In our town, girls are always daughters first, and that can make it very bad for the sons.

I believe objects can acquire a heartbeat. This key is one of them.

Gretchen stands up and wiggles her skirt down over a splotch of varicose veins. It doesn’t matter how tight that muscle is, how intricate the tattoo on her calf, the blue spiderweb of veins is what people will always remember.

People will never learn that alone with the sun out is more dangerous than together at night. Stick with your partner is a kindergarten rule that should hold for life.

I say that strangers are powerful. They can mark you in twenty seconds. They can rob you at gunpoint so you never feel safe again. They can mention you’re pretty at a party when no one else ever has, and then you don’t kill yourself that day or maybe any other day.

Why do men have to kill beautiful things?

I call Finn, but it goes straight to voicemail. I want to call Rusty, but I don’t trust him. I want to call Wyatt, see if he’s OK, but I don’t trust him. I want to call Maggie, but I don’t trust her. What does Bunny say? If you trust no one, the problem is you?

I ask myself why all the time. Why do I feel like my eye is more unspeakable than her depression? If everybody’s holes were as obvious as a missing body part, what would the word disabled even mean? Would we erase disabled from the dictionary? Would the word not even exist, because all of us are both broken and whole?