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Back The Presence of Absence
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

An old man is lying in his bed about to die. All around stand the members of his family. Closest to the man is his wife, and a little farther back are his grown children holding the hands of their offspring, the dying man’s grandchildren.

Although the old man can’t speak, in his mind he’s pleading with his god to give him more life. He doesn’t want to go. He’s afraid what will happen to the people he loves so dearly after he’s gone. He has had a wonderful life and yearns for more.

As always, god listens.

But then a moment before the man dies, god offers to grant his wish. The man can continue to live and stay with his family, but on one condition: the man must switch souls with the youngest of his grandchildren. If he agrees, the man will have exactly what he has pleaded for: the chance to live again with the people he loves most deeply.

It takes the old man no time at all to make a decision. Then he laughs along with god and dies with a satisfaction he never thought possible.

I think about what Hadley’s and Jeremy’s lives will be like after I’m gone. I’ve already picked out an urn for my ashes. Did I mention before? It’s an English sugar pot from the eighteenth century in the shape of a nocturnal bird.

Wait.

I hear something

voices

shuffling

jst beyond the dorr

ggadfleyy vaREN

WES hal

HA

ha

[quick black]

[scene change]

Part Two

Ex Vivo

Sotto Voce

They’re all around.

And though you can’t see them with your eyes,

or touch them in the usual way,

you know they are here.

You’ve known since you were small and sensed,

in the darkness

something not quite

still.

Like the others, but sight without looking.

Knowledge without thinking.

Feeling beyond desire or fear.

Like water, solid but also hovering.

Devoid of form, shaped by currents of life⁠—

not still.

We begin here now.

A quiet room known as Sunday.

In the province of autumn,

when everything that lives is falling or

wishes to drop,

pulled home into earth’s mouth,

where worms churn and whorl

the tree’s damp mix,

like fortune tellers they are ringed:

know all

without knowing.

Somewhere in New Jersey

a girl gathers leaves,

counting because the impulse to organize allays fear.

Stooping, she pulls them into her arms.

Each is completely unlike the other and yet they are indistinguishable.

The girl holds one to her face, drinks down color with her eyes. She is puzzled by the lines embedded⁠—by something etched⁠—some message that is both history and a prediction.