How to Remember Someone that Was No One

by Piper Langenfeld

A girl is currently drifting in space. Right now. As I speak. She is slowly suffocating, no suit to protect her, abandoned by the crew she trusted. By the life that once swore to fill her and make her whole. She drifts endlessly. I do not know her name. You’ve never met her, dear listener. Never seen her before, although I’m sure her face looks familiar if you squint. Maybe a family friend. Someone you once saw in a photo album. She is simply no one. A Jane Doe, just another body in this vast universe. Her hands rise to her throat, dying at the mercy of space, and there is no one to help her. There is an oncoming train at the end of this tunnel, and there is no light, or escape. She is on her very own. Oh, do not cry, child. A charming death it is, to die by the stars, be near the things that fill your veins. Do not cry. Tears cannot help you, and I think it agreed upon that dying happy is the better way to go, although the living only seems to know lies. Can you hear me? Hear me through the agony you face? Perhaps not. Maybe that is for the best. Is it easier to die when no one is watching? Does it alleviate the pressure? Speed up the process? Is it better to know that you leave no one behind wondering, or wanting, or is it better to know that someone will be there to grieve for you? To miss you. I will not pretend to know her. I will not give a false eulogy as she watches on, her eyes shutting in pain. I cannot say she lived a good life in good faith. Believe whatever you want, though. I cannot stop you. Maybe she was a dancer, a writer, a dreamer. Maybe she loved to create, to build, to explore. Wanted to be class president, to rule the world. But that is not the truth. Or maybe it is. The only fact here is that she floats now, dying, asphyxiated by the belief that she once held in the human heart. When her body is gone, the world will still continue. There is nobody to yearn for her, and people will still laugh, and cry, and suffer. The sky will not part itself and weep. There are too many people for that. Another life gone, another one gained. The cosmos know nothing of value. Despite all this, however, I’d like to believe that she was a bright girl. A misled one that had every piece of her brain intact until the very end. I’d even like to think she was satisfied. But she is dead now, nonetheless. Her body continues to float, as there is nowhere else for it to go. Maybe one day, the people that left her here to die will come across her once again. Feel guilt. But my reign is not over emotions, and there is a much better chance that they’ll forget the life that was lost, and never think about her again. Goodbye, Jane Doe. There is no one to remember you but me, and even I do not last forever.