“But you really are.”

Marcus rolled the lumps of potato mash into spheres. “Sometimes I picture myself floating effortlessly in the darkness, an immortal in the cold death of the universe. There is no loneliness despite the common belief popularized in our culture. There is nothingness, instead.

My thoughts are contained. I am no longer a scaredy-cat that I once was. Because I accept loss in the pursuit of knowledge.”

The blue-eyed girl sighed. “What about your friends?”

A third voice chimed in, “Yeah, what about your friends?”

“Ah, they’re right here with me.”

The third voice pressed, “Don’t dodge the question.”

“I didn’t. I’m done with making my balls.” Marcus pirouetted to the kitchen sink to rinse off the oil from his hands, drying them with a paper towel, leaping onto the sofa of his suite.

The girl continued her investigation, “Doesn’t it feel painful, though? Knowing that they’ll all leave you?”

“That’s how it’s like in general. People in your life come and go like the waves on a beach. The water is glistening with life and the grains of sand uncountable as are the facts of nature. When I think of it that way, I feel happy. Just like how I feel happy to have met you, Emily, and you as well, Samuel.”

Emily frowned. Samuel shook his head. He expressed, “We have a solemn Solomon over here.”

“I prefer stoic Solomon. Or even better, masochist Marcus.”

Emily giggled. Marcus could see both their eyes twinkling. They come from a strong, loving place. Marcus understood because he was lucky, too.

Samuel asked, “Did you guys finish the essay?”

“For Phanerology?”

“Well, everything else is done at this point.”

True. The three weeks had nearly run its course.

Marcus repeated the prompt in severity, “Why do you fight?”

Emily confided, “I remember I had to do a performance in middle school. I remember that day I had a really bad stomach ache. I was also low on sleep. My body didn’t want to move because it was sore. I kept coughing in the bathroom. I needed to recompose myself. When you’re up there performing, you can’t show the audience a trace of fear or pain. You have to smile.

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I remember calming down. In the front row, my parents were watching me. They didn’t say anything or do anything in particular when I got on stage. All I knew was that they believed in me. And so I did my best.”

“Did it all work out?”

“Well, I got first place and now, the story is part of my response to this dumb essay.”

Marcus gave an endearing little grin.

Samuel empathized, “I had something similar except it was a high school tournament. My mom was up in the bleachers and I remember every good point scored, I’d look up to see if she was watching.”

“That’s so cute,” Emily awed. One could visibly see each of their recollections holding themselves tight, each individual bound strongly, unbreaking, indefatigable.

The two turned to look at Marcus, both warm with affection.

Marcus revealed, “The reason why I fight, why Marcus is Marcus, has to do with a pet bunny I had when I was young.”

“A bunny?”

“We got her when I was halfway through elementary school. Raising a pet came with many responsibilities I naturally could not fathom at that age. I knew how to clean her cage, clip her nails, wash her fur, change her litter, feed her food, but I didn’t understand. I just thought this is what I must do. So, I didn’t play with her as much as she wanted. Without a second companion, at the time, it must have been lonely whenever we were out of the house.

I suppose children learn from their parents…

But fast forward to middle school. After moving to the new house, my parents insisted they have her put outside. I tried to convince them to keep her indoors but to no avail. Her condition rapidly declined one day. Lethargic, immobile, eyes dim, she stopped eating her hay and barely had any stool. We took her to a vet. A diagnosis suggested she likely had uterine cancer. After all, we didn’t spay her.

The days passed. Her condition worsened. I remember for the first time, I worried about someone else over myself. A devil shouldn’t be able to do that.

I remember holding in my tears during class, controlling my voice when I had to speak, hiding my concern when I felt someone looked at me. Life goes on, though. Others did not notice me as I expected because everyone has their own lives to worry about.

I got back home and nothing changed. We took her to the vet a second time to learn there is now blood in her stool. At most she has two more weeks. It is recommended that either we let her be or to put her down.

Then, that night came. My parents, for once, let her inside. She tried hopping around the carpet but soon returned to her tired state. Perhaps she knew what we foolish humans were discussing. I remember staring into her eyes and seeing them twinkle with life. She was telling me she didn’t want to die yet.

The next day after school, my mom and I brought her to the vet. The adults discussed the pricing for her cremation, how each letter engraved onto her small wooden coffin would cost an extra ten dollars. The decision had been finalized. It had been fully thrusted on me. At the crucial moment, when the veterinarian assistant asked if we wanted to euthanize her, my mom couldn’t make the choice and so I had to.

When everything had been done, we drove home with only just the two of us. To put her out of suffering from the remaining days, this was for the best. I remember at home, my mom sat in front of the computer while I miserably wailed for the first time.

I remember thinking about her thereafter, talking to her when we retrieved her coffin a couple weeks later. I remember extensively searching up the standard model, the building blocks of the universe, or anything else to answer the ‘why’ that hurt so much. I wanted to understand. In those two weeks where depression threatened to consume me, I resisted with all my might by those endless queries I typed into Google.

In her absence, she had become a part of me. So to constantly endure, there is no greater meaning. Because once you die, it’s game over.”