Demo end

<We haul the cart upstairs, Sara taking the front end while I bring up the rear. A couple random bits and pieces fall out as we lug it up, but it's hard to muster very much concern over it. After a little effort, we get the cart inside. Home.

I shut the apartment door behind me and lean up against it, my head in the crook of my arm. Sara fumbles her way into the living room, where she falls down on the floor, an exhausted, shellshocked heap. About a minute later, she reaches out and turns on the TV. There's a harried reporter babbling about something or other, but my mind is swimming too much to pay any attention. I step away from the door, put my back against the foyer wall, and slide down so that I'm sitting. Then I look up at the popcorn stucco ceiling. Jaw agape. Thinking.

My best friend is dead.

In the living room, I can hear Sara mumbling to herself, sobbing as she watches the news report. I think about how silly that is. They couldn't be showing anything we didn't just walk through ourselves.

Yet... it does make sense. It is only now that we have the time to breathe a little. Before, we were just running. Keeping ourselves moving and trying to stay alive. Now, here, we can take it all in. We can mull it over. Consider the implications. Imagine the future... and then realize that it's empty. The more I run it through my mind, the more I feel as if I'm straddling an abyss.

Memento mori.

Why did I think of that?

It was in my mind a couple hours ago. And then driven out by these other things. But not really. It was there this whole time. It is still with me now.

Remember that you will die. How couldn't I?

I'm crying now too. Just like Sara is, out there in the living room. We cry for the same reasons. We've seen the same horrors. We've both lost a dear friend. And yet the gulf between us remains. We cry alone. In separate rooms. In separate hells.

We will be living like this for a long time, I think. Together and alone. Trapped.

I let the grief in. I let it take hold and do its violence inside of me. I sob and heave and blow my nose on my own shirt sleeve, not even caring about the mess. I fall forward and pound my fists on the tile, kick against the wall, pull at my hair, yell and shout. And finally again I am calm. Not eased, but unable to cry any longer. My mind too weary to fear, my body too tired to rage. I sit back up and look at Sara. The TV is off again and she's on the couch. Lying there in the fetal position.

I can see that she isn't asleep though. On the contrary -- she just lies there and stares at the blank black screen with deadened eyes.

I think about what he said to me before he died. "Remember to stay alive, okay?" It's more than that, though.

Everything has its opposite number someplace. It occurs to me that this must also be true of that Latin phrase I've been fixating on. I try think of what its opposite must be. Even though I took Latin in high school, it is hard to grab the right word out of the cobwebbed recesses of my mind. But then all of a sudden, there it is.

Memento vivere.

Remember also to live.

I sniffle a little bit and stand.>

Grey
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