Les muses

She was on her knees, on the floor, surrounded by boxes. She was making yet another halfhearted attempt to sort through Sebastian’s belongings.

It wasn’t going well. A year on from his death, the majority of his things remained spread around the house in various piles and half-empty boxes. She seemed unable to complete the task.

Mariana was still in love with him—that was the problem. Even though she knew she’d never see Sebastian again—even though he was gone for good—she was still in love and didn’t know what to do with all this love of hers. There was so much of it, and it was so messy: leaking, spilling, tumbling out of her, like stuffing falling out of an old rag doll that was coming apart at the seams.

If only she could box up her love, as she was attempting to do with his possessions. What a pitiful sight it was—a man’s life reduced to a collection of unwanted items for a jumble sale.

She would sit up all night and remember everything that had happened. She would sit here, in this small, dark room in Cambridge, and think, and work it out. She stared at the red bar of the electric heater on the wall, burning, glowing in the dark, willing her into a kind of trance. In her mind, she would go back to the very beginning and remember it all. Every single detail. And she would catch him…

Don’t glorify the events of your life and try to give them meaning. There is no meaning. Life means nothing. Death means nothing. But she didn’t always think that way.