This Thing Between Us

by Gus Moreno

Friends stopped by once in a while and after we exchanged pleasantries, their eyes inevitably fell on you, and they’d ask about your progress, like there was ever any progress, and I’d give the latest seizure number you were up to and they’d say you were tough. You were a fighter. You weren’t ready to give up. All the stuff you’d say about a premature baby.

Thank you for that. Second to I love you, that’s the thing I keep wanting to say. Thank you. Besides I’m sorry.

When you died I mourned you, but also the version of myself I was with you. So there were two deaths.

Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. Thank you. I love you.

I’m afraid that when we die, we end up wherever we always thought we’d end up. If we want to go to heaven, we go to heaven. If we believe in reincarnation, we come back as a baby or an animal or a tree. If we think we’re going to hell, we’ll burn forever, and we’ll never realize that we were the ones to put ourselves there. That in the afterlife we all tapped into a mechanism, some larger system bent on fulfilling our personal ideas of death.