“I can’t say that,” I said. “You lost living people—mine are all dead.”
“You think I haven’t lost dead ones, too?” His eyes practically flashed with anger. “You think I’ve never been in a car accident that killed my wife and children along with me? You think I’ve never been in a murder suicide? Because I have, from both sides.” He leaned forward. “You think I’ve never been a sweet little old lady dying of old age, so excited to wake up and see her husband again on the other side—married for fifty years, separated for ten, and now at last on the verge of a joyful reunion in heaven? And then I wake up and I’m me. And he’s nowhere. And all I can think about is that it’s not over and I’m tired and I’m ready to go, but I’m still here and I have to do it again and again and again.” He leaned back in his chair. “You think about that before you tell me I’ve got it easy.”
I stayed silent a while before speaking. “So why don’t you end it?”
“Suicide?”
“If your life is such a hell,” I asked, “why bother? Why go through it again and again and all those times?”
“Because of…” He stopped and looked at the ceiling. After a moment he shrugged. “Because of children,” he said. “Because of smiles and sunshine and ice cream.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“You don’t like ice cream?” Elijah shook his head. “It’s the best. Imagine how excited I was when someone finally invented it.”
“Sunshine and smiles don’t make all that other stuff go away,” I said. “This isn’t a fairyland.”
“No,” he said, “it’s the real world. And the real world is the most amazing thing any of us will ever experience. Have you ever climbed a mountain? Walked through a garden? Played with a child? This isn’t exactly a revelation, John; people have been praising the simple pleasures since even before I was born, and that’s a very long time.”
“You don’t do any of those things.”
“But I have my memories,” said Elijah. “Sometimes. And I have even simpler things: music. Food. Everybody likes bacon.”
“I’m a vegetarian.”
“Asparagus, then,” said Elijah. “Roast it in a pan, a little olive oil and a little salt; you get the most incredible flavor, almost like a nut, but deep and rich and the texture is just perfect.”
“I’ve tried it.”
“The world is more than sadness,” said Elijah. “I have a hundred thousand memories in my head—I can’t remember all of them, or maybe not even most of them, but they are so much happier than sad. For every dead mother or brother or child there are a hundred breezes, a hundred sunsets, a hundred memories of falling in love. Have you ever kissed anyone, John?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“A first kiss is incredible,” said Elijah. “Most people only get one, but I can remember a hundred thousand of them. How could I give that up?” He shook his head, smiling for the first time. “The world never gets old, John.”
I thought about Cody French and Clark Forman, so weary of the world they could barely stand it. “The other Withered would disagree.”
“They only see it through Withered eyes,” said Elijah. “You’re human, so you can see it any way you want to.”
I said nothing for long time, just sat staring at him and thinking. There was no way it was that simple, no possible way that the darkness and the horror and the half-eaten bodies of the world could all just be brushed away with nothing—with the laughter of a child. That’s not how the world worked. All light does is cast more shadows.
But I wanted to believe him. Even if it’s all I ever did, I wanted to take what he knew and give it to Brooke and make all that darkness go away.
But it doesn’t go away. I said it again, out loud so he could hear it. “The darkness doesn’t ever go away.”
He nodded. “No it doesn’t. For every time I’ve fallen in love, I’ve eventually lost a loved one. That’s how it works.”
“So how do you do it?”
“Find the good in the bad—in the places that they overlap. Bittersweet might not be very sweet, but it’s not pure bitter, either.” He paused. “What music do you listen to?”
“I’m not really a music guy,” I told him.
He shook his head. “You can’t tell me the world isn’t worth it if you haven’t even bothered to experience what’s here.”
“So what’s your favorite music?”
“Irish,” he said.
“Why?”
His smile faltered, just a fraction. “Because all their love songs are about death.”