“Why do you care?”

The question is grating. It’s saturated with a horror and a hopelessness akin to perhaps an evolution, yet where can they say it’s grown?

It didn’t used to be this way. They didn’t used to vilify these things. It was always a little cold outside, and the sidewalk a little dirty but that was okay. The beachfront was always busy, always with surfers and swimmers, always with playful dogs that leapt through the saltwater foam and kicked sand all around, always with silent joggers and their bouncing ponytails or ballcaps or earbuds, always with happy children and always with older folk content to walk at a tranquil pace. Holding hands. Always.

It’s not there anymore. It’s in memory, somewhere, inaccessible because of the question. It is a roadblock and it is hideous.

Can they call it growth if it is backwards? The sidewalk is clean now, and unbearably hot. There is no ocean, only sand and asphalt, metal and concrete. Can they say this is growth? Time has passed, but not even that is linear. Maybe if they stepped to the side they could see. Perspective is reality. Maybe if they tried to look at it another way… maybe it’s worse than they imagined.

But it is not a collective problem. Perhaps “they” is inappropriate.

“Why do you care, Jack?”

Because her eyes agree with him. Yes, that is the cautious enigma, how typical and naïve, how confusingly predictable, how dull and uninteresting! There is an ardent longing for something so long ago lost yet so close to heart. There is no need for regrets upon the deathbed: pain can be a learned lesson, like waves on the beachfront, that thing that never escapes from memory. Pain can be a reminder of something beyond its face value, of something greater.

Pain can become closure, if you allow it.

He wanted to answer the question. The words were stuck in his throat.

She wasn’t there. The room was quiet, the curtains closed and a small ray of light shone onto the bed. An unused ashtray sat on the dresser. Someone outside laughed.

He looked back at the mirror.