In the forest, wind drifted through the cedar and birch trees, and I struggled to adjust my eyes to the darkness. I could feel the presence of night owls with bloated chests and long-faced coyotes stalking the wooded hillside, reminding me that despite the deed of land my parents owned, the land was never quite ours.
The moon peeked out from behind a cloud and I saw the outline of trees. Walking deeper into the woods, I was compelled to move forward, not knowing where I would reach. Ahead, I saw a dead birch tree, bare of leaves, with something nailed to its trunk. It looked like a painting, or a photograph. I couldn't quite make it out. As I moved closer, I saw the image clearly - it was a portrait of Jesus Christ, his bearded face emotionless and indifferent. His heart, wrapped in thorns, bled on his chest, and he pointed at it.
The portrait was tilted, so I reached out to straighten it, but then the honking of cars echoed from the sky. Suddenly, I found myself lying on my stomach on a mattress, a window open beside me. The window was level with my lying body, and I realized I wasn't on the mattress on my bedroom floor. I was in Will's room. My closed laptop rested on the nightstand next to the bed. I drew in a deep breath and tried to remember how I got there.
Outside the window, I noticed a tall pillar of black smoke rising from one of the townhouse complexes a few blocks away. The black smoke carved a trail of gloom across the azure sky. I waited to hear the sirens of fire trucks, but none came.
I stretched out on the sofa, the laptop resting on my stomach. I scrolled through Will's final entries. They were elaborate, once again describing the details of his abundant life. The posts described the lemon smell of a motel room, roaming the city streets, stopping to admire the architecture of a church, smelling the mangos in Kensington Market, and other precise descriptions.
I fought the feeling of endlessness, reading through the afternoon, aiming only to finish. I was driven by a feeling of duty, and I pushed through the third last post, the second last post, and then finally I was back again at the very last and most recent post at the top of the timeline. It was the same post I had read when I first discovered Will's Facebook page days ago:
Real Will
July 3 at 9:55pm via mobile
I'm sitting on a high stool in his kitchen, eating from a jar of pumpkin seeds. His eyes are as deep as I had imagined. I challenge him to remember the password 'IamwhatIam'. Let's see if he does.
A cold autumn breeze entered through the open window, and once again, I felt empty. In the hours before, Will had filled me, and once again he was gone. So I scrolled back down to the first and earliest post from 2020, and started reading again from the beginning.