The Measure

by Nikki Erlick

It made losing them somehow easier to accept, trusting that nothing could have changed the ending, that their deaths did not hinge upon any particular decisions they made, what they did or didn’t do. Because of the strings, there was no need to wonder what might have happened if they had lived in a different city, or eaten different foods, or

a different route home. The loss still hurt, of course, still didn’t make sense, but it was almost a relief not to be hounded by what-ifs. Their lives were simply the length that they were always going to be.

That the beginning and the end may have been chosen for us, the string already spun, but the middle had always been left undetermined, to be woven and shaped by us.