BooksBarbecue
Back The Presence of Absence Save as PDF
Chapters (40)
  1. also by simon van booy
  2. the presence of absence
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Prologue
  7. the presence of absence
  8. Part One
  9. 27.
  10. 26.
  11. 25.
  12. 24.
  13. 23.
  14. 22.
  15. 21.
  16. 20.
  17. 19.
  18. 18.
  19. 17.
  20. 16.
  21. 15.
  22. 14.
  23. 13.
  24. 12.
  25. 11.
  26. 10.
  27. 9.
  28. 8.
  29. 7.
  30. 6.
  31. 5.
  32. 4.
  33. 3.
  34. 2.
  35. 1.
  36. [quick black]
  37. [scene change]
  38. Part Two
  39. acknowledgments
  40. a note about the author

It’s an unexpectedly intimate experience getting to know someone after they have died. If such a thing is even possible, then language really does have magical qualities. I am honored by the trust Hadley and all at Sipsworth House placed in me, and grateful for the friendship that has developed as a result. At Hadley’s request, all the names in the book have been altered to protect the privacy of herself and others. This includes her husband’s, which was changed to Max Little, so if you type his name into the internet you’ll discover some interesting people, but none connected to this work. I have tried to remain true to Little’s evolving vision of life and death throughout the text, but should you find any weak areas, they are most assuredly a result of my hand, while any parts you find worthy of praise will undoubtedly be the work of Little.

—⁠Simon Van Booy

the presence of absence

Part One

In Vivo

27.

Most readers expect some crisis in a story’s first pages. The idea being that if you keep reading, the narrator has succeeded in distracting you long enough to forget you exist outside the book, where⁠—like me⁠—you are dying.

All I have this time is my life. Or what’s left of it.

The square hospital room from which I type this missive is as familiar to me now as my own hands. There are two windows, one in the door and another in the wall, but I have not been outside for almost eight months. In that time, however, I have visited places and people as permitted by the drunk librarian of memory, whose random dispatches have not led back into the past, but into the future where there is often clarity⁠—but also helplessness.

And so if contrived disaster is why you’re here⁠—to be diluted by the suffering of others⁠—then I suggest you stop reading and put this book down. Find a parable-style work with a cover that has been purposefully designed to trick you. I mean it. I’m not joking, nor am I trying to be antisocial. I won’t tell you what this story is about, and you can just go on with your life⁠—forget the moment ever happened⁠—never think of me again as you step back from the unexpected intimacy.

In this story, pain is the only reliable proof of happiness.

26.

You do realize that by turning the page you’ve decided to follow a complete stranger down a possibly meaningless path?

I’m going to try and lead you home by a different road. Home is where you’ve been wanting to go for some time. It’s why you read; unless you’re in school and this is forced, in which case, you have my sympathies, as childhood is a series of small disasters that conspire to become something precious.