The Long Night
Oh, please don't ask her name, I can't bear to say it—I can hardly bear to think of it—and yet I can't stop thinking it. She's dead now, the world is and shall be always bereft of her, dead and gone now and forever. I think so, anyway. No, no, I'm sure of it—I must be sure of it—I can't stop thinking about her death, I can't stop thinking about her being dead. It is getting late now, almost midnight, and still I am preoccupied with these thoughts of her untimely demise. I can't sleep with the weight of this so heavily upon me.
How did it happen? I don't know—I don't know! It's not as if we were close, not as if we knew each other, not as if we had ever met. She was on that television show—oh please don't ask which, it's too embarrassing—a contestant on a reality TV show, and not even one of the more respectable ones. And now she has died. I know it—I can feel—I'm certain—I'm positive—she is dead—she is dead. Is she? She must be. Yes, she must be! I must have heard about it somewhere, seen it on some news program, read about it somewhere online.
I don't know.
So I could check. I could look it up, go and Google it, find out for certain and how it happened that she died so young—yes, so young, her early 20s perhaps? Yes, I think that must be right. Too young—far too young for such a cruel end. But I know for certain already, even if I don't, don't I? She is gone, regardless of if I can't say when or how or how I came to know of it. God! What a silly thing to think! No, no, I can't check—it's all too ridiculous, too silly, too stupid a thought to spend even a moment more of my time on. Yet I can't stop, I cannot make myself stop thinking of her, of the loss of her—I am consumed by it, it overpowers and overwhelms me and gnaws at me in some deep place inside, commands me, demands of me, my presence, my focus, my soul. How can I be so sure that it's true? But it is true! And yet... And yet...
Yes, I could check—I could Google her name—know for certain what I feel for certain—or confirm my foolish error, reassure myself that isn't true—oh how reassuring that would be, how wondrous and beautiful the news that she is alive and well, the thing above all I would wish for this very moment if only wishes could be granted me—but I can't. No, no, I can't—it's still such a foolish obsession, it would insult me, insult my intelligence, be an insult to the whole of humanity, to dignify it by even entering her name into the search bar. I am an idiot for entertaining the thought—for entertaining these thoughts.
Besides, what if they don't know?—any of them. What if I am the only person here in this world—the only human being anywhere on Earth—who knows what has befallen her? Why that should be, I can't say—but what if it's true? It could be true. What if there is some connection, something more than natural, some bond beyond and between us, though we had never met in life, for reasons I can't explain nor even fathom? Then it would be the case that even if I were to try and check, I could never find the answers I am so frantically seeking. Yes, yes... Maybe that is the case! Perhaps there is something more, some greater work, at hand, or greater hand at work. I have felt her loss, I am at a loss, and I cannot be consoled...
By God, if anything earlier were stupid how much more so must this nonsense and magical thinking be! I'm embarrassed the thought ever crossed my mind. How could I be the only person, what bond could there have been, what kind of fool am I that any of this entered into my view? Right now, I could end all of this, there on the computer, just search for her name and see what comes up and be done with it and think of it no more. Right now, I could find all the answers. Right now—if only the question were worth thinking about—if only these weren't the half-witted fixations of a dullard. How could I justify the expense to my soul of making all of this real by committing myself to that search? I could but confirm my own degradation for participating in this farce. God, how mortifying.
But what if she really is dead? No, no... But she is dead. She is dead. I will never know how I've come to know it—I can't risk it, oh, I can't risk it—but I can simply feel her loss somewhere in me. Now I can't help but think of her death—her death has taken control of me, it rules my thoughts and reigns over my emotions. So, it seems inescapable—she is lost and shall remain lost, for all the years seemingly without end until the heat death of the universe, never to return, never to speak another word, to behold or be beheld—Oh, God, can it really be?—and the whole of my mind is unwillingly fixed upon this specter of death and I am left paralyzed by its power. The tragedy of it all that she has been taken from us so young! The weight of it upon my spirit is becoming unbearable. It can't be true, can it? It must be true, mustn't it? No, no, it is too much for me, I crave the certainty—I ought to look it up—I must look—I can't! Never—I'm afraid. Never. I am at a loss and I cannot be consoled...
The morning light has begun to shine through the window and into my room.