A month ago there was nothing on Earth I missed, enjoyed, or longed for. I knew I could lose everything and not feel anything, and I rested easy in that knowledge. But I'm growing tired of easy things.

The sports arena Julie calls home is unaccountably large, perhaps one of those dual-event 'super venues' built for an era when the greatest quandary facing the world was where to put all the parties.

There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.

I'm watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don't deserve them. Her warm memories. I'd like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel.

Sometimes it's a struggle to live in the moment.

We eat and sleep and shuffle through the fog, walking a marathon with no finish line, no medals, no cheering.

Nothing is permanent. Not even the end of the world.