“I first met him in our high school orchestra when I was a sophomore. He was quieter than I, but our friendship grew, a symphony with the soaring melodies of Verdi’s operas, the brass chorales of Mahler, and the vibrant harmonies of Gershwin. The hours we spent discussing the intricacies of thematic orchestration, the unparalleled wonder of Aasimov’s Foundation trilogy…traveling to Spain, to France, to Ireland, to play in ensembles, enjoying the journey as much as the destination…playing side by side at home, in accompanying ensembles for operas, sharing jokes, moments, and the greatest camaraderie one could ask for…always enjoying one another’s company, the warm, kind side that exists in every person but waits for the right circumstances, the right environment, the right person to draw it out.
“Yet we are not made to suffer joy unending. The planets continue their ever-changing orbits around our star, the constellations whirl overhead, cavorting with comets and black holes alike, and down upon our little piece of rock friendships form – and are broken.
“Perhaps I tried too hard to be a good friend. Perhaps I overwhelmed him with warmth, drowned him in acclamation, suffocated him with support, and buried him in messages. No matter what it was, three Aprils past, as the Sun began again to shine with warmth upon the budding branches, and the fiery blossoms of the first flowers glowed in the gentle light, he cut me off from him. I have not heard from him since.
“I realize now I handled the situation poorly. My response was desperate, the fear of one who suddenly finds themselves on the brink of a precipice unlooked-for and tries anything to avoid falling. But I realize now that pleading for an explanation, a rationale, anything to make the world make sense again, can be like trying to bring down the pyramid of Khufu with your skull: only you bleed, in drops and gushes of blood, until, defeated, you slide down to the precipice and fall.
“Or at least so I first thought. For this great world of ours is complicated beyond all reckoning, and technology has only made it all the more so. Communication is difficult in the best of times, and in the speed and rush of college and senior-year life, who knows what words, thoughts, actions, could have gone awry. That golden thought, that all this was such a mistake, has grown in the recent months, nursing the idea that some action of mine, some casual word to him or a friend, was misconstrued, or misunderstood, or misinterpreted, and the termination of four years of friendship occurred on such a misfortune. But I have no recourse now, not when he has made it clear he wants no contact at this time.
“And yet- does time not flow for us all? Do not its sweet waters drown our memories, wash clean the stains and discolorations of the past, and with its balm of forgetfulness leave us with the greatest capacity of our species, forgiveness? This I believe, or choose to believe; and, come December, when the winter winds blanket the churches and carpet the fields, I plan to reach out again. To apologize, to extend an olive branch in truce of a war never commenced, and turn back the clock, to mend those broken things that were once whole and can be again; for renewed can be blade that was broken, and the second law of thermodynamics need not apply to our lives.
“This thought, this hope for reconciliation, in the darkest watches of the mind, sustains me. But I worry that this hope will do me more harm than good; that if Sisyphus accomplished his task, his boulder would roll down a steeper and taller hill than that up which it was pushed.
“It is about this hope I consult you now. O mirror sanguine, tell me: do I hope for naught? Would Sisyphus do better to abandon his task, or will the hope that sustains me bear fruit? Or else – does the possibility of fruit weigh not at all on the value of this hope, and its infinite existence bear greater value than any possible resolution?”
“Dear child, in your torment you ask the wrong question. Hope is not good or bad, a healing balm or a seething acid. Hope is a demon and an angel, a blessing and a malediction. It is at once the golden light on tranquil waters and the crimson gleam in the spilled blood of the innocent; the candle that gleams in the window of a hopeful mother and the flames that devour the homes and lives of the hopeless. It is all that can be good, and all that can be evil, and all that there is in between.
“In this finite world you inhabit, what good is it to speak of infinite existence? Nothing in your universe will remain forever; in time, even the black holes will breathe their last and perish, in an endless, featureless void, thus to remain for true eternity. In such a world, what good is it to cling to hope until your brief pirouette upon the stage comes to an end? Your lives are too brief, too bright, to waste in such a desperate Purgatory. You speak of the passage of time, of the drowning of memories in its swift-flowing waters; but does it not also apply to you? No matter what comes to pass, fruitful or fruitless, you will make your way through and come out stronger for it.
“And yet… perhaps it would be better to live forever in your own mind, in your own memories of the past when the sun shone golden in an azure sky. Perhaps never facing the future, preserving the possibility of a golden future, is preferable to facing the bleak cold of reality. Perhaps you should never collapse the quantum wavefunction, and bathe in the warmth of its uncertainty. Perhaps you would be happier that way. But the choice is yours.”
Writer | Kidane Pincus ’28 | kpincus28@amherst.edu
Editor | Adrita Zaima Islam ’29 | aislam29@amherst.edu