I have developed, in the past five minutes, a curiosity about the penultimate words of dead people of note. It occurs to me, extremely recently, that last words are often words of regret. In those cases, I suspect, penultimate words are often regrettable words, or the expression of regrettable actions. Of course, I am making certain assumptions here. No doubt there are many times when penultimate words are orthogonal to history, irrelevant to legacy. My interest in this topic is quickly waning, soon to be forgotten altogether. As a last gasp of attention span, I am wondering what my penultimate words will be just before I die. And now it's done. I've lost interest in the question.
Moving on.
She asked me a question about love in the time of rockets. I asked her if she meant modern times, space exploration and whatnot. She said not exactly, that she meant the future, light speed and whatnot. Would people still love each other? I said I didn't see why not. She said she was worried about it. She rubbed the tip of her thumb over her other fingertips, back and forth, a nervous habit of hers. I said I think it will be okay. I told her I'm not even sure there ever will be such a time, a time of rockets. I've long suspected futurists are wrong about this. She smiled at me but seemed unconvinced. The hard, night rain thumped on our tent like a million falling stars, tiny and wet falling stars. This was in November, just before she left for the penultimate time.
Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Aren't you?
Later. Love.
