The Picnic

The air was crisp and sharp as I inhaled. It had snowed earlier, as it always did for half the year in this godforsaken place. The snow always left the city in a haze; heavy, droning gray clouds bleared the skies, and dirty snow blended with dull buildings along the horizon. The entire city carried a depressing mood that leached onto its inhabitants. I wasn’t immune to this, especially not today.

I pulled my hood over my stinging face, resenting the wind that never rested as it barraged me with another sudden gust. I hated coming here, where the only thing more frigid than the weather was the isolating silence, and the thoughts that came with it. The only sound to pierce my thoughts was the crunch of snow under my boots, but even those became rhythmic after a while, abandoning the contents of my own mind.

Somehow, this place was capable of both upsetting and calming me. I could only ever think sad and sorrowful thoughts, and I hated having that on my mind. But, at the same time, it was the only place I knew he would know those thoughts. For some reason, that comforted me—and I resented that, too.

I turned, following the path that was engrained in my mind. There were faint footsteps in the snow, smaller than mine, following the same path. I’d been watching them for a while, but in this place, I thought it would be unlikely that they’d follow all the way to my destination. I was wrong. It wasn’t surprising; a lot of people had good reason to come here. A lot of people missed him.

I finally stopped, pulling my hood up again, trying to convince it to stay up around my enragingly thick hair. I pulled my jacket closer around me too; it was going to get colder now that I wasn’t moving. I stared down at the familiar sight, and that same frustrating relief came to me.

Mikah Lohal

1995-2021

It was almost like I had my friend here. Almost.

He would be happy to know I had that thought. I was never one for the over-romanticized, blown up ideas in life; it was unnecessary weight we all carry around. Everything eventually sorts itself out— us chasing these dreams only puts more weight on our shoulders.

Mikah, however, was a romantic. He cared about passion, the potential of the human race, how to find real happiness, true love and every other high-life ideal. It was part of who he was. I didn’t get it, and I didn’t really care. But I didn’t have to— it was his lifestyle, not mine. I’d tell him ideas like true love are just that— ideas we chase for our entire lives only to end up disappointed—because nothing like what we imagine actually exists in the real world. He tried to convince me otherwise. He had all the belief in the world that there was an version of life, a way to live, that most people would never know—where everything was more intense, where everything was exhilarating, and everything made you feel alive in a way you had never known before. Everyone had the potential to get there, he thought, but so few would ever actually know those kinds of experiences. 

He always swore he’d find it, and actually believed he did, for a long, long time. He swore he was living it, day in and day out, soaking in it with every breath. But just like everything else, it ended. I wouldn’t have ever told him “I told you so,” but it was another real world example of why it’s not worth any time. 

Coming to this place was the only thing I ever did that came close to anything like that, but I couldn’t help it. I knew it didn’t make sense; it’s just a rock with a name and a lifeless body buried under this hard winter dirt. Being here should be no different than sitting at home, where I could be warm and doing something productive. But it was. I don’t know why, but I feel better here.

 And just as it always did, with that thought, resentment crept into my mind. I felt stupid for being there. I turned away from these dramatic thoughts, and I was suddenly alert to how cold it was, of how little of my face I could feel. I looked around the gravesite, trying to swallow how naïve I felt. The wind blew again, forcing me to look down so that my hood would protect my face. I watched the ground, waiting for the chill to subside. An empty bottle rolled with the wind into my feet. I bent down to pick it up, annoyed that someone could just leave trash around. Even if I saw it as a bunch of dead bodies, it means something to some people.

Around the side of Mikah’s grave was another bottle, just barely sticking out past the tombstone. This one still had some of the light blue liquid inside—it actually looked barely touched. I picked them both up, then looked around. I don't know why I was acting, no one was around—but it helped me believe I actually was looking for more litter, instead of trying to get rid of how childish I felt for being there.

Getting into my car, I threw the Gatorade bottles into the passenger seat. The empty one rolled over to sit next to the light blue one; just with a passing glance, I caught that it was the red flavor. When I recognized it, I paused. For some reason, I couldn't get past that, that they were red and blue. I started driving away, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that a memory was on the edge of my thoughts, but I just couldn’t figure it out.

 I drove through the dull, gray city to find my home and walked inside. I regretted leaving so quickly, and Mikah stayed on my mind the rest of the night. Going to bed, I was still thinking about him, and what that memory was that was nagging me. 

The next morning I woke up, faintly recalling the dreams I had about Mikah hiking through woods, talking about how much being in nature soothed him. He said it took away all of the things that weighed on his mind, all the things he couldn’t forget, he forgot when he was out.

And then the memory came back to me. I got up, more confused now than I was before. I grabbed my phone, searching for the right person to call. Not long after, I grabbed my heavy jacket, boots, and started driving back to Mikah’s gravesite.

It took me no time at all to follow the same path leading to the gravesite. My footprints from yesterday were still there, along with the smaller footprints beside mine.

I walked up to Mikah’s tombstone, and looked at the snow in front of it. There was just one small spot where the white of the snow was discolored; it was light blue.

“Man… He always said. He always…” I started to speak, but I couldn’t quite believe what I wanted to say. I knew it was true—yet I couldn't believe it was real.

“He always said he found it. God, the way he described it… Even I wanted to believe it. ‘It was the kind of love you read poems about,’ he told me. And god, if you heard his voice as he said it, you’d know there wasn’t a single cell that didn’t believe it. He believed—with every single part of him—that he found something that most people would never know. He tried to resist it, he said, but there was no denying it. He rejected it out loud, and his own heart laughed at him. That’s one way he knew. That what he felt, he was so sure, was it. It left him breathless. Literally.

“For the first time in as long as I’ve known him, he didn’t know what to say. He so badly wanted to describe it to me, but everything he said fell short. He told me there were no words, and anything he told me, I should imagine as being even truer than he explains it. He himself, he said, used to think he knew what true love was, and that it was out there. But then he found this, and everything he thought he knew changed.”

I looked to the right. “He was always a romantic, but when he found you… When he fell in love with you, his entire world changed,” I told her. Emma, the girl Mikah had loved like no other.

“Why did you ask me to come here?” She asked, trying, and failing, to steady her voice.

I looked back at his grave. My stomach was turning.

“He told me this story one time, about you two. He said one time, he was driving, you two were running an errand for your family, it was just a regular day. He was driving, left hand on the wheel, right hand on your lap, like it always was when he drove with you. He said you used to do this thing where you would just hold his hand and run your thumb over his fingers. You were doing it then. 

“You were both listening to music, not really talking, but just enjoying the life you were living together and the music on the radio, driving down the highway. He said out of nowhere, you turned to him and asked him the most random question he’s ever heard, but one he’d never forget. ‘What’s your favorite Gatorade flavor?’ He told you. ‘Light blue, why?’ You turned your head back to look out the window and said ‘Just wondering. It’s not really a happy reason or anything.’ He wanted to know though, so he asked again, and said it didn’t have to be a happy reason. You said ‘Well idk, I was just thinking about if you died while we were together.’ He laughed and said ‘Uh yeah, not exactly the happiest thought.’ You continued, ‘I told you,’ you said with a small giggle. ‘I was just thinking that if you did… I think I’d go to the store, get a red Gatorade, and get a light blue Gatorade, and I’d pack a basket, and I’d go and have a picnic at your grave with you.’

“He uh, he didn’t know how to take that. When he heard it, he felt all of the air fly from his lungs. He said he had never, in his life, heard something that hit him like that. He had never heard something so painfully, utterly romantic, and he had never been so in love. When he was telling me this, he had to stop throughout the story. I’ve never seen him cry, never once, and I’m his best friend. But when he was telling me this story, he had to stop, to stop his voice from cracking, and catch the tears behind his eyes. My god, did he love you.”

“Sometimes,” Emma said after gasping for a breath, “Things don’t work out how you think they would.”

I looked over at her again and watched as a tear streaked down her face, into her scarf.

“Ya know, the last thing he told me about true love, is that it’s lifelong.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the empty red Gatorade bottle. I handed it to her, then I took out the blue one and set it against Mikah’s tombstone. “If he could see this, or somehow know this… This would be another one of those moments. One of the one that takes his breath away, and makes him fall even more in love with you.”

She looked up at me for a moment, before she gave in fully to the tears. It was only as I was walking away that I realized my own eyes were hot. The the feeling in my stomach had only gotten more intense, and I was having a hard time steadying my breath too. It was only as I felt hot water run down my cheek that I realized that Mikah had finally gotten to me. I wasn’t even part of any of this, but just remembering him talk about it, and seeing her come back, knowing she remembered that story just like he did, made me feel the pain too. And I instantly knew why I never wanted to experience this first hand.

“Why do you come back?” I asked, turning, voice shaky and raising in volume. “This didn’t even have anything to fucking do with me, and it hurts to know. Why do you come back if you know it’s only going to hurt you too?”

“Didn’t you ever listen to him? He said that when you live a life with these experiences, everything is more intense. You love like you’ve never known, but you feel pain like you couldn’t imagine. They come together, you can’t have one without the other, even if you wanted to. That’s part of the beauty he saw in it. That everything— every raw human emotion— was more intense than you could possibly imagine. But when you feel pain like that, you know… You know you can still love with every part of you.”

I walked away, feeling like a fool, my thoughts once again tangled up in Mikah's ideals. Mikah had been getting through to me all along. He knew. He knew that I would be capable of finding whatever it is he was talking about too. Maybe, just for him, when I find it, I’d give it a chance.

His voice came to my mind.

-You won’t have a choice.-