moon landing

Bianca Michelle Rasmussen

Friendship is a funny thing; how one shared experience unfolds into many, weaving themselves like strands of light into our lives. How curious it is when the intricate strands of a stranger so effortlessly intertwine with our own.

That’s how we started, anyway. And how I try to remember you.

~

It’s Tuesday night, also known as “Veggie Tuesday”, or “that day of the week where everyone goes to the kebab van after hall”. On the way out of the library, I hear the soft melodic jangling of metal, and you catch up to me, keys bouncing from the lanyard against your chest.

“There’s still so much work to do, I honestly don’t have time to eat in hall tonight,” you say with a groan.

“Do you want to just go grab a quick bite somewhere instead?” I ask.

We head out into Oxford. The food is ordered, and as the waiter takes away our menus, I realise we’ve never been just the two of us together before.

“So—where did you say you were from in Korea?” I ask.

“Jeju Island. It’s really beautiful,” you say. “You have to visit it someday, if you ever get the chance.”

Your food arrives before mine. Without thinking I start taking photos; you instinctively begin to pose with your pho. I catch your eye and we both laugh. The waiter interrupts our photo session with my dish.

“I think I’m going to break up with my boyfriend,” you say.

I nearly choke on my noodles. “What?”

“Sorry—overshare!” You smile. “I just really needed to tell someone.”

“No, that’s alright. Walk me through it.”

By the time we’re done with our food and I’m caught up on the heart flutters and frustrations of your relationship, the veggie meal in hall is long over. We leave the restaurant arm in arm.

~

“I’ll cook you hotteok!” you exclaim excitedly as we walk back from the letting agency, “Oh, and proper kimchi! The stuff they sell in the shops here is gross.”

We just signed to live in a house together for second year and our plans are through the roof.

“Can we get a communal rice cooker?” I ask, “And let’s throw a house party like once a term at least.”

“Obviously,” you say, “We will be the houseparty house.”

Second year can’t come soon enough.

We sit on your floor drinking tea out of big pink mugs, talking about men and whether we should really be calling them ‘boys’.

You try on dresses for me that you’ve bought on Asos. We laugh till we can’t breathe because they’re all made for people twice your height.

When I get back to my room, I type “Jeju Island flights” into the search bar.

My plane ticket is purchased eight months in advance.

~

“How are you always so happy?” you ask.

“I’m not always happy,” I say and smile, “I mean, have you not heard me complain about microeconomics?”

Your eyes crinkle, as do the corners of your mouth. Streams of tourists are filing past our window as winter slowly gives way to spring. We’re practicing our familiar ritual of sipping coffee in a café instead of doing our work.

“No, for real though—” You look down into your mug, swirling around the last bit of your latte, “I mean, when I was younger … I’ve been in a pretty dark place.”

The soft whirr of the coffee grinder blends in with the background noise of other coffee drinkers.

“Last term was really good, probably the best in a long time—” you continue, “I just wonder.”

I nod and take a deep breath. What if you think I’m insane?

“Right. Well, I guess I just feel that I carry around light inside me, in a sense—” you look up from the latte “—because I believe in the Light. Like, God.”

You nod.

“I know how it sounds,” I say, “But it’s just knowing that, despite me being so insignificant—that I am loved—it gives a kind of peace.”

We sit in silence for a while as you think.

“I wish I felt that way too,” you say.

~

“I don’t know why I did that. I’m so sorry—I’m a mess.”

Your blinds are drawn. Clothes and dishes are littered across your room.

“No, don’t apologise,” I say, and you look away. “I was just worried for you. Are you okay?”

Our first collection before exams was yesterday afternoon but I noticed your seat had been empty.

“I’m fine. It’s the jetlag and everything,” you mumble, “I overslept.”

“That’s okay, I’m sure they’ll let you retake it,” I say, “Just email them, they’ll totally understand.”

You put your face in your hands.

“What if it’s always going to be like this?” you ask, “I thought it would have changed by now.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it!” I exclaim and reach for a hug, “It’s only our first week back; this doesn’t have to define the rest of your term!”

You send me a weak smile and nod.

“Come on!” I say, “Let’s take a walk in the sun and get you some bubble tea.”

~

Do not disturb

is hung on your doorknob, but I end up going in anyway. You’re late for the dinner we’d agreed on yesterday so I’ve come to fetch you myself.

“Hey, are you ready?” I ask. You’re lying on the floor by the window. The light is off.

I notice the heap of empty packets strewn across your desk, the empty bottles. The rest of the room is too tidy in contrast. Why is the light off?

The ambulance comes first, then the police. I’ve never noticed before how small these hallways are. How suffocating.

My room is so quiet, the silence rings in my ears. Then my phone vibrates with a call.

How do you tell a mother that their child is gone?

“Thank you,” your mom says, “for surrounding her with light.”

Your dad compares your time here to the Apollo moon landing. They tell me how you fought for years with that all-consuming darkness; how tiresome the journey had been.

“But it was worth it,” he says, “for that short while with you was really one great leap: happiness.”

They found a card in your room while cleaning, addressed to me.

"Sorry for being so flaky lately. I’m trying to pull it together." Your handwriting is neat as always. "You are like my sunshine."

The card is buried in the pocket of my coat, hanging over the armchair. "H for Happiness" it says on the front. It pulsates so hard in the dark that I can’t seem to fall asleep.

Perhaps to you I was sunshine, but it is the light of a supernova I’ve been trying to emulate. I wish you could have known the real thing.

“She’s not really gone because she lives on inside you,” someone reminds me, “In your memory.”

I know they mean well but I almost laugh.

How are you supposed to live on in me if I can barely recall what you look like?

What you’ve become in my mind is a bleak phantom of who I know you were. I need you to come back and shatter the shell that is my memory of you, set it ablaze with your presence.

For all that’s been said about me lighting up your life, I seem to be losing myself in darkness.

Go figure, I mutter to my mirrored reflection as I put on foundation to cover up tired eyes.

~

It seems an insignificant detail now but I can’t shake the question: Did I ever tell you that you lit up my life too?

I sit down and read:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

I know.

Believe in the light so that you may become children of the light.

I know.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

I know.

I know I am not alone. But it feels like the strands of light woven through our friendship have been mercilessly pulled out and now there’s nothing to hold together my tapestry; it’s a pile of hapless cords on the ground.

~

It’s been seven months. Ironically, it turns out life doesn’t stop for anything. I have laughed more since that day in May than I thought possible, forgotten more than I thought I would. Yet, still I catch myself looking for you in my new friendships.

When the waves of the world clash against my soul, I am reminded that I am not the source of light. I pick up the pieces from the ground and ask for them to be lit up again. I am a vessel.

As the year changes, I turn from the shifting shadows of my mind.

I know that you are loved, even though I can’t show you love anymore. You are loved by that constant light: the light that filled our friendship.

I have hope that light is still to be found in me. I have hope in the light I see in others.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Bianca is a third year Philosophy, Politics, and Economics student at Harris Manchester College. She is originally from Copenhagen, Denmark.