0. Prologue
There are times in our lives in which we live in memories. Without the tedious repetitions of life, moments of the present are enshrouded by the moments of the past. Craig knows this well. His grandmother was the epitome of such phenomena, the embodiment of old age, the example everyone would think of if they had to: the crumbling elderly.
Her last years were encompassed of contemplative quiet; Craig can remember the silence of his final weekend visits, on the hill overlooking South Park's entirety, in her antique and powder blue home. She carried listlessness that made Craig's pale in comparison. She had that elsewhere look embed in her wrinkles, and whenever she felt lonely with him, she'd occasionally murmur occurrences that were long gone. Mostly, she spoke of love—fifty-seven years of marriage upended by her husband's death. She had never really discussed him, only, merely mentioned him in soft tones that were weakened by age, by the sorrow of remembrance.
Craig didn't have the chance to meet his grandpa before he died—his passing was only an event his grandmother could recall. But Craig learned "life lessons" amongst copious card games, during beloved movies, through bowls of popcorn completely to himself: love is an all-consuming, heartfelt, and syrupy possession. She praised that honey hued attraction, the sweetness of togetherness—especially the pearly shade of love that's young—how it'll pool in the stomach like feathers, how it'll feel like it will last forever, even if it won't. But in this case it did; fifty-seven years, to Craig's grandmother, was practically an eternity.
There were other lessons, gentle reproaches of his unsociable nature. His grandmother told him that he should smile more, pinching both cheeks into something similar. "Let them know you are alive," she said, referring to everyone, anyone. She told Craig to laugh more, saying, "I never hear you laugh. Listen to a joke. See something funny. When you do, tell me about it." She instructed him to open up his heart, that blue-colored, ironclad, but secretly malleable organ, to love.
"That way," she said, "you will never regret a moment—no one has ever regretted a moment in love."
When Craig's grandmother passed, she left his family with a recently rearranged will—if that said anything to anyone at all. Her extended family piled into South Park in a week for the funeral and stayed a week longer for the reading of the will. Craig's uncles, her mother's brothers, received most of the wealth that remained. But she gave her small house on the hill and the dilemma of most of the belongings within it, to her daughter, Laura. Ruby acquired her jewelry, accumulated for forty years. Craig was given her abundant collection of movies, boxes and boxes of them.
She left her grandson with amplitudes of memories too. For a while, Craig wallowed in her shoes, her endless thoughts becoming his. Craig similarly pondered the past, but he never lingered on love. Unlike his grandmother, Craig spent his thoughts reflecting on being much younger, much more naïve, believing that grandmothers will never die—that those who are dear to us will live with us perpetually. In the midst of thoughts, he closed his heart to any business at all, let alone love—but it was never really open to being with. Seldom smiles ceased, laughter died within his body before it was even born.
That was only months ago, when the sun had a habit of setting around six. The constellation, Orion, was visible for most of the night, that vivid pointer to the rest of his companions in the night sky. Now, the summer has the sun preoccupied for most of the day. Now, things are different—his thoughts are, mostly. He's thinking of other things: colors, lights, the perfect angle. Looking back, Craig can admit, he was not himself.