The Question

My dearest Rosalie,

That was a scary question you asked last night. Surely you know that. You talked about us getting married as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if it was inevitable. Perhaps it would be, in other circumstances. I didn’t tell many people this, as it was considered unmanly when I was growing up, but I always dreamed of my perfect wedding, and the person I imagined was a lot like you. Beautiful, charming, and intelligent. Your one flaw, at least according to other people, is how funny you think my jokes are.

But back to the question at hand. Normally, getting married is considered a long-term thing. Growing old together, spending the next several decades falling more in love and getting to know each other more and more. But this isn’t the case for us, is it? Best we can hope for is a few months. Maybe a year or two if we’re lucky. Is there any point to getting married when we know it won’t be for long?

I do love you, and I want you to be happy. I couldn’t imagine living through this with anyone else. Despite everything else that happened that day, the day I met you was the happiest day of my life. When I saw you walking across the plaza, my world stopped and all I could do was stare at the beautiful woman I was so awestruck by. Somehow you didn’t freak out when you saw me watching and actually came over to talk to me. I still can’t believe you did, sometimes. I know you have said you think I am attractive as well, but I have always considered myself pretty ordinary, and believe me when I tell you that my friends have reminded me that I’m “punching above my weight” about a thousand times.

For so many people, that was the worst day of their lives. Well, for me it was a Dickens quote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Best for having met you, worst for it happening on the day of the Disaster. I suppose we’ll never really know what happened that day. My brother never trusted government systems being trusted so much to automated programs. I guess he was right.

I keep getting side-tracked. Sorry. I’m trying to focus on your idea of marriage, but while ordinarily it would be important, it seems kind of trivial in the light of the Disaster. We’ve known each other two months now. One month since the nation discovered how truly devastating the Disaster was. I’m not the kind of person who would normally marry someone after two months. Maybe not even two years, but we probably won’t have two years. I wish we could get away from this, but we would have had to do that before the truth of the Disaster was discovered. No country will take anyone from here now. They can’t risk being contaminated. Too late for us.

Maybe that is a reason to get married. We love each other now, and I’d like to think that we would have gotten married eventually. As I said before, you are the person of my dreams, and I don’t want to lose you because I’m scared of what’s going to happen. Maybe this isn’t romantic, but the worst that’s going to happen if we get married is that we’ll hate each other for a while and then the end will come. Not that I see that happening, but I have to consider all the angles. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this in a letter to you, but I want you to know the kind of person you have suggested marriage to. Someone who will consider all the angles, good or bad, and possibly overanalyse even the smallest issue.

Obviously marriage isn’t a small issue, even in these circumstances, but I do have to work out what I believe is best. The Disaster has drastically shortened our life expectancies, and that changes things. Is love the only thing to be considered here, as you claim? Couldn’t we keep our lives just the same as they are? After all, I can love you with all of my heart, whether or not we are married. I can sit on the couch with you, telling you the worst jokes I’ve heard that day, listening to the silly stories you tell about your work, and watching the same movies over and over because they are our favourites.

We don’t have to have an adventurous life together, we don’t have to be amazingly rich, and we don’t have to live decades together for me to be happy with you. I would have loved to buy you anything you wanted, travelled the world with you, and been one of those mythical ancient couples who die together in the nursing home. We won’t get any of that, but I wish I could have given it to you. I wish I could have given you anything and everything that you ever wanted in life.

The Disaster has gotten in the way of so many of the things that I wanted to give you, so many of the things that I wanted to do with you. I would have done anything for you. I think that even if the Disaster hadn’t have happened, I would have wanted to marry you someday. I would have wanted to do anything that would have made you happy.

Obviously, I can’t know the future. I don’t know if we would have gotten married if the Disaster hadn’t have happened. I don’t know if we would have stayed together for the rest of our lives. I don’t know if we’ll have two weeks together, or two years. I can’t see us lasting more than that, given the best projections are about eighteen months from now, but I do know that I want to be with you until the end. I’m scared of what’s to come, but I want to face it with you. With all of that, I guess I just have one more thing to say:

Will you marry me?

Love,

William