It didn’t exactly solve all my problems. Hell, it didn’t really even solve the one it was supposed to; the rain still sprayed against my face and beaded against the plastic of my coat. It felt nice, though. To share this tiny reprieve from a tiny problem, even if it was with a complete stranger.

I eyed the stranger in question. Her hazel eyes were bright with excitement at seeing the world so utterly drenched. I couldn’t completely understand it—although perhaps I was rarely the right person to ask about something so whimsical.

I tried to see things the way she seemed to. Miniature rivers of rainwater pouring down into gutter grates, the light shining through the tinted umbrella to give her face a rosy glow. Another duo shared an umbrella the same way we did. I wondered if they knew each other. I wondered if they had the same question about us.

I was so lost in my contemplation, in fact, that when she stopped walking in front of the building I had indicated, I kept going, nearly banging my head on the edge of the umbrella.

Then I stopped. Turned towards the building’s big double doors. Turned back again.

“Something wrong?” She seemed genuinely puzzled at all of my turning and looking and sudden inability to walk.

“Well—um. Well, I just thought. That is, I—“

“I think we should do this again sometime.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t mean walking around in the rain, obviously. Unless you want to, I guess.”

She asked if she could punch her phone number into my notes app, “just in case we ever wanted to meet up or anything.” I nodded, still feeling somewhat wrong-footed, and thanked her for the umbrella. We exchanged pleasantries, and then, just like that, she was walking away.

She kept her cool for about a block before cheering a little and pumping her fist into the air, laughing. I didn’t think I was meant to see.

I stood there for a little while. I felt the rain on my face. And I smiled.

So, who’s going to die today? Shall it be the fools that listen? The fools that speak? The king that watches silently? The crowds that sing?

Shall it be you? Your heart? Your lavender garden?

Shall it be me? Shall it-

These boots have carried you far, far from home With soles, you stride With rough leather you roam You’ve made friends in forests And found foes in seafoam

So once you’ve lived and you’ve died And the battle is done Take your shot, stranger You’ll only get one

I’ve long been chased by violin That shriek of brass, those tears of tin That wretched bow and screaming string That sound consuming everything

So when I hear that minor key Begin to make it’s way to me I know that they draw ever near To take me far away from here

I am the road. I am worn cobblestones shaped by the brush and stride of all who have crossed me.

And I am also the silver mist from warm breath in the cold air.

I am the soft clack of tiles placed on a gameboard.

I am a chemical reaction, an output, and so, too, am I the component to someone else’s equation. The sun against their leaves, or the salt against their soil.

I am a contributor. I am incomplete. I am atoms bonding.

You are the kind word I’ll never forget, and I am the joke you still repeat.

_What a wonder it is, to change each other. _

I never realized The air smelled like home Till I left it, and it, too, left me alone

I hadn’t considered The feel of the water The grain of the wood, or The voice of my father

Now I rest on cool tiles That have not known my name

Lone at home, they cry! What a shame.

What a shame.

I swore I could still hear the faint music of you Playing from somewhere I had passed by So I turned and ran back Past my mistakes To before

You were not there anymore And neither was I

Life is nothing. Less, even. Life is a negative number. Life is the space where nonexistence falters. But all things pass. Life is a grain of sand in the eye of the world. An irritant. A disruption that will not meaningfully last.

And so, at my core, I am a guide. I have been mandated to return you to the beginning, not of life, but of nothing. The universe has chosen lifelessness, yet you seek to defy the very thing you stole existence from.

Strange, I think. That the death of the world by humans is a convenience, while the death of humans by the world is a tragedy.

You fear a fair fight.

I have come to make you afraid.

The light of the moon glints softly By the time it reaches the seafloor It is diluted Broken Weak

But it fights its way downwards Ever farther from the source

Barely grazing the sand Flickering over strange, moving forms

Until the sun rises again Drowning the sea in gold and green

When the glitter faded and the lights fled She was left Ragged and alone Tracing the grey tile Like a picture of a long-forgotten friend

When they left She remained Hurt, but whole And no one but herself