This Thing Between Us

by Gus Moreno

These feelings weren’t new to the world, but that didn’t stop it from feeling like they were. These same friends would later text me a line from some book or a quote from a movie that was supposed to comfort me, atheist friends messaging me about unexplained phenomena in physics and quantum mechanics that were supposed to prove how no one knew what anything meant. Bob Dylan lyrics. Books on reincarnation. You have to listen to this song, Thiago. It’ll help. And sure, I could hang platitudes and facts on myself like ornaments, but it still didn’t help. So what if the universe was a hologram? So what if this was all in our heads? The points being made never stuck. I couldn’t synthesize this knowledge, but even worse, I couldn’t even regurgitate it to at least convince myself I knew something about life, or death, or meaning. Something inherent. Something irreducible. With every moment the floor shifted under my feet. The world was pressed against my nose, too close to see. I had no story to follow. My favorite character was gone.

In this world we struggle and bitch and fail and hurt and then weep over someone checking out of it all.

In the rearview mirror I saw the red glow of the brake lights on the blacktop, and out of the dead night something scrambled, like an animal, into the red. It was crawling on all fours, except its legs were spread out on either side of its body like a spider. A spider the size of a person. Its hind legs were covered in denim, something white flapping under its belly, what could have been the cook’s apron. His eyes had completely fallen into his head, leaving two yawning gapes.

!!!!!

The ceiling was vaulted, a network of wooden beams that looked sturdy enough for someone to hang themselves.

Alright