Four Found Dead

by Natalie D. Richards

Maybe it’s a rule that movie theater carpet has to look like a fever dream after a high school geometry test.

Something is wrong. I can feel it in my bones, deep down in the lizard part of my brain that keeps me alive. There is danger here.

The whole world is a set of dominoes—everything we say and do touches another domino, and they all tumble this way or that. Your choices might ripple out to someone who cures cancer. Maybe my recent choices opened a window of opportunity for a killer.

For me, going through the motions is practically second nature. I learned how to smile and move along when it feels like your insides are coming unraveled. I know how to fake it.

Afraid doesn’t feel like a big enough word. I’m not sure there’s a big enough language for the feelings I have about guns.

What’s the point in pretending? None of us are okay. What the hell would it say about us if we were?

“It was a long time ago,” I say. Because nine years is a long time. Even if some days it feels like seventy years won’t be enough to make me stop missing him.

It’s easier to talk about my father’s death with people who don’t understand. There are polite ways to talk about it. You use words like lost or passed because dead and died make people squirm. They’ll inevitably tell you they’re sorry, and then you’ll assure them that it’s been a long time or he didn’t suffer or whatever other bullshit line works. You can always find a line that will hit the brakes on the whole topic. People who haven’t lost anyone are happy to pretend death doesn’t exist at all. But talking to someone who’s grieved? It’s harder to hide in that conversation.

I know even the most horrifying things have their limits. This nightmare will end.

“You do realize you’re not responsible for the whole world and everyone in it, right?”

Some things change you in ways that will never change back.

I’m awed by every piece of this moment, by the sheer simple wonder of being alive.