K,

In the party, you told me about the law of falling.

How did I reply? Did I reply? I remember everything, yet I do not remember that. Surrounded by the darkness of my room, you’d caught me off guard. You touched the tears on my cheek. You touched my face and even then, in the beginning, I did not pull away.

A law for a paradox. I’ll trade you.

We believe the Universe birthed an infinite number of stars. By this logic, you could stand anywhere in this world and look up at the night sky and your line of sight would inevitably end on a star. By this logic, the night sky shouldn’t be dark at all; it should be a blinding wash of starlight. Therein lies the paradox. The paradox doesn’t account for the fact that the Universe, like all things, was born and has been growing ever since. Expanding outward—pushing, pulling, as you told me. Celestial bodies floating in a black sea, carried by a current older than life. The problem is the assumption that the Universe is static, unmoving; that every star has always occupied the same space in our sky. The nature of the Universe is that everything inside it becomes lonelier and lonelier and lonelier. Some nights I lie awake, thinking of this, and it makes me unspeakably sad.

Not as often, these days.

Because it’s you.

It’s you, the wash of starlight, the old paradox: if the Universe were static, I could stand anywhere in this world and I swear my line of sight would end on you.