death, pt. 2

Melissa.

Did they ever destroy that 24-hour place where we used to hang out? I know they were going to. I was crushed when I found out, and spent the evening writing down little stories I remembered about the place. Things we'd said, or things that happened there--you know how it is. I probably sent you one or two, for the sake of old times.

We have this macabre fascination with dying things, you and I. Not that we'd ever admit it, or even really talked about it. There was a time once--it must have been at the diner, I guess--where you asked me about it, and I almost talked about it. But we talked about everything but death, because that's the one thing that's always on our minds, isn't it? And since nobody ever says what they mean--least of all me--how could we ever actually talk about it? Besides, words have no power in the realm of death. It's something you experience. You can describe the shape of it with words but not its texture, its color. Words can't look death in the eye, and they certainly can't grin back at it.

So that moment came and went. You kept looking at me like you thought I was going to cry, and I wasn't sure what to do, or what to say. Which, as you might imagine, is new to me. It's been years since that day, and probably the diner has been destroyed now, but I finally figured out what I should have said.

"We should go to a funeral together."