My Last Letter to Josephine
By Ethan Naegele
A despondent rush of air escaped from my mouth as I leaned in toward the candle. The delicate light from it faded out gradually (like we did, darling), and the light waned and contracted into a singular, infinitesimal point at the wick’s top—the circular effect of which died while the night’s darkness swallowed it. The exact moment when the light became one with night, I could not tell, much like how I cannot tell when this elderly heart of mine will slow to a stop, but I am convinced that it will beat long enough to tell the events that should follow.
The air’s chill within my chamber cast itself into a deadly still atmosphere. My body itself contracted a mellow chill, common when waking on such cool mornings in the hours before the dawn’s light begins to spill its secrets.
I sallied out from the house without a meal; you’ll find that within the depths of sustained mental suffering, a constant, dull pain—agonizing and permanent—far surpasses the necessity for such basic pleasures.
I stood out in front of the dingy place while the brisk air opened my nostrils entirely. A deep breath in with eyes closed, and my chest rose. Not a moment later did I feel that my insides were one with the surrounding atmosphere, as if every inch inside me had cooled to a halt.
My eyes opened and I returned to life again. In the secrecy of the fading night, I saw the mounds of untouched snow all around me as far as my eyes could fathom. Clean and stark, like a heart unshattered. Like my heart, before it shattered. It’s those moments, in a place so tranquil and eerily desolate, that leave you to your thoughts, where they echo ad infinitum.
I could never last too long without remembering you, darling. A quarter mile east down the road was the tree where we first met, and we watched the summer’s sun fade into its spectacular orange glow. Atop the hill to the southeast was where we first kissed, and there we sat for hours and stared into the summer night sky and listened to one another’s soul.
But in this present moment, in the winter of discontent, you were nowhere and everywhere: for when I looked to the southeast, or to the west, you were not there, yet the memory of that very tree’s existence brought your blinding image directly to my mind’s eye, as did the sky, or sun, or the very ground on which I walked, for that matter, because what didn’t remind me of you, love?
A faint hint of light in the morning sky led me to walk down the road, eastward, past the countless old stores with decaying wooden panels, whose windows had accumulated so much dust that the interiors were all inscrutable; and I strolled down the way, past Mr. Moonfield’s antique shop, owned by a man whose skin beneath the eyes sagged as if under the weight of all human experience.
Not a soul stirred in those hours. Perfect, I thought. Nothing was more divine than those hours of secrecy in which I moved under the cover of darkness; when I could pleasantly swim in those memories of love; when there was not enough light to reflect the tears in my eyes; when the sky could still hold its tongue.
The hint of light revealed no clouds. Soon, the sky would show its blue eye, with the sun beaming so brightly that one couldn’t help but forget all the Earth’s warmth being released into the infinity above without the clouds to blanket us with their love.
I carried on. Soon, I would get to the place.
Snow’s silence was deafening when all I could hear were memories of your voice, darling. These wounds run deep. Again and again, with every step upon the ground’s pristine blanket, the thought echoed: I wish you could have loved me like I loved you. But it was nothing more than a thought—existing to no one else but myself, echoing with infinite loudness in my ears only.
I had broken away from the town and out into the countryside where the blank hills rolled out into the new sky and I was ascending to heaven; the freshness of white surrounding me became one with the sky now colored so faint a blue that it too was nearly white.
Closer now. Angel’s skin caressed me and the memories became louder. We’ll never sever. An honest love so true that we have become married at the soul. I… love you, darling. It was its own mockery: your face—one whose glow could pierce all of darkness—was in the sunlight itself.
That is how I felt every morning. Imagine it, darling. Imagine that a single person has the power to twist your every thought into a memory of her. Imagine that you wake every morning having lost your security—all sense of mental fortitude—and that it becomes a daily pursuit to retrieve it.
The thoughts became louder still and I knew that I would lose myself if I didn’t get to the place in time.
But I soon took the final step and I was there. It was the peak of the highest hill which overlooked the surrounding moors, towering over the encompassing waves like a lighthouse.
There was a lonely tree whose age was carved into its low droop which had crept continually lower over the years of bearing the snowy burden upon its bare branches. Adjacent to that was a gray boulder. The eastward side of it had eroded into the shape of a convenient seat so that I could face the sun directly.
Other than that, there was nothing. The bare blanket of snow, not even disturbed by wildlife, filled me with a sense of purity, and the snow beamed brightly, returning the sun’s warm smile coolly. That pure, untouched peak, combined with the perfect placement of the boulder seat, seemed to reaffirm the thought that this place was solely mine.
I sat on the chilled rock with legs crossed, looking out in the vague direction of the sun, first at the pure white sinuous hills, smoothly coasting across the country, and then to the forest of evergreen trees just beyond that, whose natural darkness strengthened from the contrast of the sun. It looked like the trees were black, almost, except for the tufts of snow. The tips of the tallest ones seemed to just reach the sun’s position in the sky so that the glowing star topped them. Like Christmas.
I closed my eyes, inhaled the freezing air, and sat perfectly still. Minutes passed as my body continued to cool further. The relentless frigidity was a reminder of the indifference with which this world deals out suffering. The only thing that kept my heart from freezing to a halt was the warmth generated from a tepid spitefulness directed at a world that offers a pursuit of a tragic illusion of love and calls it “life”, and—perhaps I thought—my insistence on challenging the brutality of the winter was akin to challenging the cruelty of life itself.
Minutes bled into hours. In some state of half-consciousness, I envisioned stepping off the peak which tethered me so tentatively to this life. At the base of the hill on the steep side in front of me was a collection of jagged rocks, among which I could see myself with a skull split open. I pondered upon whether—when the scavengers came—they would discover a body whose eyes were closed or open.
I know you would say it’s a strange thing to imagine, darling. Perhaps it is. But in those horrific mental wanderings, I gained a sense of security within myself—security that led me to appreciate the air I inhaled, whether it was marked with a bitter cold or an oppressive heat. It was a security that reminded me “You could be among those rocks, but you are here.”
It was reassuring to have those reminders from time to time, when the mind seems to destabilize such that everything in the world is perceived to be against me. Such episodes were common in those days. Imagine feeling like a rolling cloud of fog, and that is how I felt, both in mind and body. So I needed to come face to face with Death to remind myself of the feeling of life.
I hadn’t moved a muscle in several hours. I could feel my heart’s slowing booms weakening in my chest. I could see them, too.
I was in a dark room—a sort of dingy place you might find in the strange country miles outside of town, except that I couldn’t see much other than a few inches ahead of me. I didn’t know how I had gotten there, but I had the strange sense that Death was lurking somewhere in the room. Or maybe he was the air itself.
From what I could see, the room’s contents—a large anvil at the center, and bookshelves lining the walls—were all coated with cobwebs and dust. Although there was no light whatsoever, I seemed to emit some sort of aura, as I could tell that whatever was a few inches ahead of wherever I stood was illuminated.
My footsteps upon the floorboards creaked horribly. I found, perhaps by hearing the air flow, that there was a long hallway ahead of me. With each new step, I could more clearly see a glowing red figure at the end of the abnormally long hall.
At first, I thought the figure was a sphere, and the more I tried to look, the more vague its figure became. Then I knew—in the mysterious way one tends to inherently know things in a dream—that Death was hiding somewhere down the hall, in some unknown doorway between me and the red object, and I knew what She looked like (despite never seeing Her), and although Her face had a clear familiarity I couldn’t recognize it in that moment. My footsteps became slower and the creaks grew louder.
I looked straight ahead for the first time in what felt like ten minutes and found that the figure was a giant beating heart, some twenty yards away. Some draft of wind coasted through the hall and across the back of my neck and my hairs raised.
The heart beat was slow and thunderous—an omnipresent thud at the lowest possible frequency. I walked toward it blindly but slowly. I was drawn to it as surely as a moth to flame. I had a vague understanding of where Death lurked but I couldn’t possibly know exactly where.
I looked down to see that with each step I took, more of the floor ahead of me became illuminated. At present, about a yard ahead of me was lit. Another step, and another yard would light. The air itself now held a strange stiffness, as if the intensity of the situation had the atmosphere ready to collapse, and all the noise in the world now seemed to fill that deafening ringing of silence between the booms as I now stood dead still.
The heart only beat once every few seconds now. I wanted to get to the end of the hall and get to the heart for some unknown reason—some reason which, in the moment, seemed self-evident but under later scrutiny I could not find.
But I couldn’t get there no matter the reason. Despite the infinitely compelling force that guided me to the end of the hallway, my knees locked with an intense dread of what I would soon uncover in the hall if I was to continue.
I took a long pause in an attempt to regain composure.
I took one more step and like a light switched on, more of the floor beneath me glowed amber.
That heart was slowing evermore. But I could hear Death breathing. I couldn’t go on. Couldn’t face Her. It was a glorious hell I had found, and so in that moment came a violent intensity to rip apart my vocal cords with a strident scream—as if to mourn the imminent loss of my soul. But I was stuck, stuck somewhere between the desire for a primal scream that was burning a hole in my throat, and the restraint from moving any further which looming Death had forced upon me.
The dream had become all too real. I pried open my eyes in resignation, as if committing suicide to exit a dream world which had become too purely malevolent, too honest in its intent to destroy. So I opened my eyes.
The sun caught the peak at a much different angle now, and the parts of snow that had once returned the sunlight now displayed a cool gray as new shadows swept over those areas. To my side, the tree of death looked more dead than before. The air itself even felt emptier than before as it howled through the moors.
I stood up slowly, feeling the creaking within my limbs. An awful feeling, darling.
I walked back from the place, through town, past the old shops dusty with vacancy and creaky from the intense cold whose emptiness permeated through the streets. I felt emptier, too—weightless, almost, as I stepped through snow hardly leaving a print behind. I passed in front of Moonfield’s shop when the thought occurred to me that I should check my reflection, that it might display a deathly pallor which would require immediate attention. I leaned in toward the glass, realizing it was no use, since the now distant sun had made it too dark on the street at this hour. With a mellow contentedness, I carried on, with my back toward the dying sun, under the sky still cooling in color.
The ancient door of my home opened with a strident creak, as if it had been shut for a century, and the rush of warmth from the inside greeted my face. I once again welcomed myself to the four walls that so often allowed my thoughts to reverberate until madness gained control once more.
A definitive thud marked the front door’s closing followed by my march toward my bed. I collapsed onto it, staring into the ceiling that was illuminated in a strange way from the sun giving its last hurrah through the trees and into the window; an oddly bright triangle of light projected across the ceiling.
I sat there, pondering. When my mind wanders, I pay attention, you know. I wondered how I could have chased after the heart in a pursuit that would so certainly kill me. In a dark corridor, with Death at the other end, I chose to walk toward it. And then the destruction of all my sanity that ensued! That heart, with its damned irresistible appeal, was going to bring about my demise.
Often times, my dreams seem so separate from reality that I have to disregard them entirely, and other times, my dreams seem more real than reality itself—as if they unveil some pure, unmitigated truth I could not see before.
This was one of the other times, darling. I have allowed passions to rule me; I have seen how they have drawn me far into darkness and insanity, until I am face to face with an image of Death that looks a lot like you.
Vernal
by Ethan Naegele
From time to time I see some strange image of a man in a seemingly unending field, with dandelions freshly in bloom, and the air is golden with afternoon sunlight and pollen all fused into one. The blades of lush, almost glowing grass all give their scattered wave as the wind strolls through. There isn’t ever a cloud in the sky on days like these. The sky is just one big blue marble.
The man holds a dandelion in his hand. He’s crying tears of joy because he doesn’t have to cry tears of sorrow anymore. Because things are alive now. No longer does each new day have to be the next chapter in an unending book of mourning. Because winter does that to you. It imbues you with a never ending sense of despair, injects your veins with cold discontent. The skies are always as concrete gray as your mood. Each day blends into the next like paint on some starved artist’s monochromatic pallet. Just ask the man what he feels. “I can’t tell you what it means to me to no longer have to feel like I’m mourning someone’s death all the time. The seasons affect me deeply, you know. I take great interest in the forecasts because the color of the sky is the color of my mood and the temperature controls the viscosity of my blood.”
He can’t tell you what it means to have that beaming sun in the sky whose sole existence is like life’s purpose manifesting itself in front of him. It’s as if with each time the sun returns after months of being a cold stranger, he finds his God again. Happiness is a byproduct of purpose, the man will tell you, but he won’t tell you he has neither when the sun goes in hiding, and so in those months he’s a godless little being, fiercely swimming for survival in an infinite sea, toward nothing. His words can’t express what it’s like every year to have the grass return to us with its mighty vigor, brighter than he ever remembered, descriptive of the returning vitality of his youth that seems to escape him every winter. He can’t tell you any of these things, because that’s in the core of his soul and in the soul of humanity—to struggle with our demons silently, crying in quiet desperation patiently waiting for the conflict to resolve itself, waiting until the snow melts and the cold winds subside and give way to new, vernal beginnings.
So it is. So from time to time I’ll be walking through town and the light hits me differently because the sun is out, transforming the scenery and my mood, and in those moments passes a fleeting reminder—not even put to words—that I am where I need to be. The significance in the sunlight is self-evident and inexplicable. And no matter how much I wish to hide it at the back of my thoughts, the truth is always whispering backstage: I am the crying man in those wild images. He is an external representation of my own soul, a visible conscience, created to communicate that which I cannot fully comprehend. So I’ll walk through town, and I’ll pick up a dandelion, crying tears of joy, too, because under the springtime sun, through life and death, he and I are one.
Cards, Memories, Life, and Death
By Ethan Naegele
The dull gray of the morning light peered through the light blue curtains, mixing with the faded orange of the bedroom’s lamplight, evoking an image whose dreariness rivaled that of Death.
I awoke earlier than usual that morning to take the shower that the previous night’s frantic busyness caused me to forget, so I had some time to myself in the secrecy of early morning, allowing a mellow contentment in those brief hours of blissful solitude, where thoughts echoed steadily and softly. In those hours, I often made a strange habit of using the time to organize the disorder that crept up on me in previous months: the room wasn’t as tidy as it should have been, my desk was becoming a mess again, and the items I kept near my bed for convenience often crowded into disarray around me.
So those familiar symptoms of early morning habit took over. Next to my desk, I found myself at the small table that held some old papers and notebooks and whatever else I failed to clear away over the months. There was the insect guide I had gotten so many years ago as a Christmas gift, and there was the notebook from the past summer I had used to learn calculus, and various folders.
But then there was the card.
Some months beforehand, my dad had given it to me when he was cleaning up at his place, as he often did in those days, when he stumbled upon the card in my room, hidden away on the shelf of books too old to use.
Of course the card itself is a memory, and probably Dad and I both knew it as he handed it to me but neither of us dared to say it because we aren’t good at those emotions. The card itself is a memory: eighth grade graduation and even though it’s a silly thing to celebrate, Mom got me a card anyway. A memory. Because things weren’t always the way they are right now, Dad. We used to be all right, I think. All five of us. When there were still five of us.
The morning’s light was growing still and I knew I didn’t have much time before I had to head out for school. Fitting, though. It wouldn’t be long until high school days were behind me, and in my hands were the remnants of my most recent graduation. “Graduate: A Gift For You,” it read, and beneath it were the remaining twenty dollars out of the fifty that were originally there. It was the only money I had left.
(That’s fine, though. I knew what I was getting into when I didn’t apply for a job that summer. I told myself I needed to, that even though the act of presenting myself out in the world petrified me, I had enough fortitude to contend with whatever the world threw at me. I told myself that going out in the world might cause some amount of anxiety and suffering but listen you miserable bastard: abdicating responsibility is going to feel a hell of a lot worse. But still I did it anyway.)
A memory, and a reminder of how far I had since come. I opened the card. The note inside revealed pride repeated too often to be anything short of genuine. Maybe you won’t see the value in her words, reader, but it’s there, in a way that perhaps only a son can see. A mother’s pride—reaching down to the absolute bedrock of human emotion in the sense that there is nothing stronger, nothing more sincere; simple words that contain sincerity itself:
Congratulations
to my Dearest, Smart genius, shy, quiet Middle son, you have achieved to make it this far and I know you’ll make it even further to achieve your goals. I’m so proud of you, like you would not believe.
Lots of Love, Hugs + Kisses
Mom
Memory of a simpler time. But the hardest, most soul crushing realization is that there were no spelling mistakes in it.
Ever since then, every piece of her writing had numerous errors in one form or another, acting as a constant reminder, and a physical manifestation, of the mental deterioration she had since undergone, and this card held one of the final products of her mind before it devolved into chaos—the result of sustained living in the mental Hell in which we are all prone to live at one point or another.
So I couldn’t read it in its entirety. It did not instill a feeling of grief, but perhaps more precisely it instilled a fear that I would begin to grieve over a person still living. It gave a troubling sense of permanence—that these were the words of a human being no longer with us. Permanent—like Death itself.
In this way, the card is like staring into the abyss, I think. It’s like a piece of literature that speaks to you so completely that it haunts you; it lives in your mind and unfurls and takes on a life of its own, becoming far more than it ever was. So, the card will continue to sit in the same spot that it has, but if I don’t look at it for a long time, now you know why. It’s okay, though. Things won’t always be this way, so chaotic. Some day we’ll all be settled again, like before. I think it helps that I’m not so angry anymore. I’m not so sad anymore but I noticed lately there are even more of her spelling mistakes in the grocery lists than usual. Some day, though, she’ll get back to writing things without any mistakes. I can still believe.
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