How High We Go in the Dark

by Sequoia Nagamatsu

detritus

foot in a parallel universe where nothing mattered except laughter and forgetting and sad fucks with whoever lived in the trailer next to yours. Two

Excuse me, excuse me. Have you seen my childhood?

“Maybe we understand each other more now that we’ve sampled each other’s lives,”

“Maybe we can be kinder to one another.”

vids of wealthy friends glamping on their quarantine retreats, notifications that profiles had been turned into memorial pages.

Sure, I missed them, but who were they really? Who was I to them? The apologies and drama seemed like too much to bear. Here, I was in control. I was somebody without a past.

“Remember those KOA campsites on our family road trips?” I said. “Helping Dad pitch the tents,

the serial number indicates a 2025 model.

I’ve also been revisiting my old self, the punk rocker who thought she could save the world with music and a microscope.

apparently, we’ve never been great at filling the silences. I

suppose I should be thrilled he’s making such an effort. I’m surprisingly unfazed.

marriage and who you fall in love with are largely a matter of chance, chemicals, and how far you’re willing to drive.

sometimes people and places serve a purpose for a finite amount of time to help you think and grow and love and then you move on.

I could have loved you; I did anyway (and maybe if our lives had been different you could have loved me, too). I tell you a million other little things until nothing remains of your kirin-mermaid self except for a piece in my hands the size of a large hailstone, until that too melts.

the pressure of the chopsticks cradling bone.

Our hands combed the ashes, removing the last bone fragments. I felt like Baba had given us one final gift.

My father used to say our planet and everyone on it was made of pure possibility and that’s what made us special, made us able to create, become anything we wanted.

“We become everything we pass until we become the thing we created.”