Survivor Song

by Paul Tremblay

this time marker has the ominous weight of both possibility and inevitability; from here on out, anything can and will happen.

And love. The kind that’s so good it hurts and will always hurt. A great and most terrible love. I’m sorry. Bye.

The sight of this sick, wounded, undeterred animal fills her with near-incapacitating dread and awe; an emotional-level recognition, or reconciliation, that the gears of the universe will always grind its adherents—apostles and apostates alike—in its teeth.

He turns to Luis, who will not look at him, and says, “Guy. This isn’t our movie. This isn’t our story. It’s theirs.”

She can’t do this. She stands and she watches. The house makes creaking and rattling noises, the kinds it saves for when someone is alone.