On the last day of the whole year of a whole people, everything is still and no one notices because there is no one left. Maybe someday something will bear witness, sweaty palm on bible, and a voice as wine trembles and          suddenly that is the future and the world is alive again. You sit and rewrite a sonnet and try to find a rhyme for change. You make a drink of cherry soda and vodka, spilled over the page. You try and think about dinner, but the empty chair you prop your feet up on isn’t as alluring as it was last year. Instead, write about tragedy. You check the mailbox as well as the curb for a problem. You pace the too-big kitchen and take down photos and rehang them. You lie, probably, or at least that’s what I assumed. And assume. And will continue to. 

On a Tuesday, the last of the whole year, you pack your trunk until you can’t see out the back or the sides and begin to drive in lines and circles. Maybe the emissions will trace your name in the sky. Maybe those are stars.

Leo Slattery is a College first-year from Connecticut. They intend to major in Environmental Science.