The First Day of the Last Month of 2025

Written by MaryGrace King

Photography by Elizabeth Hunt

A candle, flickering in the dark. The winter pulled at the windows. Cold seeped in. I was curled around a bowl of bread dough, trying to entice it to rise with my own heat. I was a stone in free fall. I was back in the old apartment – the first one. The world had shifted. Love could not jump over the Wall. I couldn’t understand how I felt. I had longed for third-party intervention, and now, in the throes of experiencing it, I think it would have been better if I had cut things off on my own. I had not wanted it to happen like this. I had wanted to be able to make the decision. The incompleteness writhed within me. 

The world had shifted. Everything was the same. Everything was different.

A candle, burning low at the end of the wick. I whispered ancient vespers. Shifted the bowl, smelled yeast. Smelled the thin wreath of smoke as the candle went out. Saw snowflakes at the window, wind rattling. Saw dogs outside under the streetlight. Saw their handlers. My phone was a device dead to me, tucked in its soundproof box. 

I pulled the curtain closed. 

I succumbed to the darkness. 

~~~

In many ways, my tiny apartment was a haven. It held everything from before, and everything for me now. In many ways, I was the most myself I had ever been. In the most twisted way, the state’s ruling on immigration, my love leaving, had led me back to the apartment that fit me best, that wrapped her arms around me, that held me and only me close. I wouldn’t have moved back to this sweet place if my love hadn’t been expelled. The state’s ruling had made me freer to find my own footing as a solitary homebody, freer in my day-to-day motions. I felt monstrous for thinking this. This was the freedom I knew wouldn’t last. The freedom of houseplants and coffee, of waking up alone in my own apartment, paled beside the freedoms I was poised to lose, the freedoms my love had already lost. 

We had wanted change. We got it. 

Who were we? Cursed myself for not fighting harder. 

Things weren’t that bad. We still had music, and words, and poetry. The books hadn’t been banned, yet. We still had libraries. 

We just didn’t have anyone from outside. 

A hole in my heart. The lilting lover’s sunlight that once filled it was clouded over. It had happened so easily that it scared me. I was afraid the hole would close over completely. Was I really that unfeeling?

The sun rose. It was cold. The bread was risen. It had taken a long time to rise. 

Oven clicked on. Sun through the snow. The roads hadn’t been ploughed. The dogs were gone. 

I heated water. Watched the boil, hypnotic. Wondered where to go today. It was Sunday. 

I pressed against the oven for warmth. 

Everything was beautiful and empty. The solace I had craved, and finally grasped, was deafening. 

~~~

I had started using cash again. 

My work laptop, shut. 

The phone box. 

I never knew if these sorts of things were enough. They were probably paranoid over cautions, but they made me feel better. 

Water boiled. Bread went into a hot oven. I wrote ideas for the day in a notebook and immediately forgot everything I wrote. Wondered if print newspapers were still sold in the grocery store. Remembered when I would drive my mom’s car to an empty parking lot and cry. Remembered what it was like to drive. Wondered if it was time to buy a car, in case I’d need to leave the city. Wondered if I still could.

Showered, shivered. Remembered when we’d squeeze into the bath together. Remembered how my back would cramp, my neck would ache. Wondered if it had been worth it. It had definitely been worth it, then. I was a stone in free fall. 

I dressed in wool from head to toe, old pieces they don’t make anymore. I had bought the wool trousers from a thrift shop. The stoner who sold them to me told me they were Navy-issue, from the 1950’s. He had tattoos on his knuckles. I wondered if he’d go before me. 

Bread came out of the oven. It was time to go.