Chapter One: As Without a Name

I stood at the precipice, on the very edge of a foggy darkness. She stood for a while and looked through me, to the abyss that seemed to be enveloping the vanishing horizon. It was early morning. Or maybe it was night. Or maybe it was afternoon. It had all become one—the day and the night—today and the day before—and the day after. At that moment, time did not seem to exist.

At that moment, I knew she had questions. She had many questions. But I did not. Or at least I hid my questions behind a silent mind. I would not admit I had questions. I would not let myself ask. I would not let myself wonder. I would not let myself inquire, afraid that if I allowed my mind to roam freely, I might stumble upon answers I didn’t want to face.

But this was my plan—to get her up here. Now, though, I wasn’t sure how to proceed.

We stood for a long time—from a dimming light to a coming darkness, a darkness that was disconnected from Mother Nature. A darkness that was our own. And then she began to move closer to me, without moving forward, she somehow moved closer. She remained still, yet the distance diminished between us. She moved closer as her gaze narrowed from far beyond to nearby, and finally, her eyes focused on mine for the first time in a long time. Her bottom lip quivered almost imperceptibly as if her mouth wanted to open, but did not know how. She looked—and waited—the growing silence becoming deafening. I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight myself out of the silence that seemed to have overtaken us. I gulped as if my throat was about to betray me. I didn’t want to lose control, so I fought the urge and matched her silence with my own.

Her mouth opened and a word escaped. A single, devastating word. A word I never wanted to hear, as I feared the answer, or maybe even worse, I feared the lack of an answer.

Her mouth opened again and the word floated softly into the air… “Why?”

I froze for a moment longer and then stepped forward, taking her hand and leading her as far from the abyss as I possibly could.