William was
“Can I change something really little?” Travis asks, almost in a whisper. Helen nods, and Travis slides the computer from Helen’s lap to his.
William will be remembered as
“I just think it changes things a bit, you know? It’s kind of… I don’t know.”
“It’s much nicer this way,” Helen says without a smile, and brings the computer closer to her again.
“It’s more about the future this way.” Travis says.
Helen nods again.
“So what now?” she asks.
Dan sits on the couch next to theirs reading about low-carbohydrate diets on his laptop. It gives him a strange sense of comfort, like it’s the right thing to do, because it’s the only thing he can do.
Helen and Travis take out a piece of paper. Earlier that night, the three of them had written down words that described Will. To Helen, writing those words felt like drawing Will’s shape without filling in the middle. She knows that Will lives on in her memories as something so precious that it’s beyond simple words, and part of her finds comfort in that. But another part of her is terrified by that intangibility; of the possibility that without the perfect words to express Will’s memory, he will slip away from her with time.
“I think we just need to write anything,” Helen says.
“Okay,” Travis pauses to think. “What about, William will be remembered as a—”
“Can you write it?” Helen’s voice shakes, just a little bit.
“Sure.”
She passes him the computer. It had started to overheat, and she feels relieved to have it come off her lap.
William will be remembered as a loyal, supportive friend. He was
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“You just can’t not say was.”
Helen nods. Travis continues.
“And that sounds so cliché.” He looks up to the ceiling and closes his eyes.
Helen nods again.
Every time Travis looks up now, whether it’s to the sky or a ceiling, he thinks of Will. The first thing he did when he heard the news was to console Helen, because she was the one who told him and it was all she could do before the tears came. It was only once others arrived that Travis allowed himself to go to the backyard to grieve, breathe in the night’s air, and look up to the stars to talk to Will.
He remembered the night of their friend Maddy’s twenty-first, when Will pulled the straw out of Travis’ gin and tonic in front of a circle of guys and threw it on the floor because “only women drink from straws”. He remembered how that moment left him speechless. But he also remembered the day he twisted his ankle playing soccer and ruptured his ligaments. Will was the first one to sprint in from the sidelines to check on him, he was one of the team carrying him off the field when he realised he couldn’t walk, and he was the only one sitting with him for five hours in the emergency waiting room at the hospital. It was there that Will told Travis about how things were with Helen, about how he loved her after seeing her for a year and a half, and about how scary it was to love someone so much because it could fall apart at any second. Travis had nothing to say that could help, but he saw the gratitude and relief in Will’s eyes for just the chance to be so open. Travis loved Will because he knew the best version of him. His love was, in a way, a hope that Will could eventually grow into that best self and leave the bullshit behind. That night in the backyard, Travis was unsure whether Will’s death meant that hope was already achieved, or if it could never be. Looking up at the sky, he told Will he was angry at him but that it would be okay, because he loved him and always would.
“Asshole,” he’d said then, and repeats the curse in his head now.
Dan is reading about fostering Seeing Eye dogs while they’re in training so that they can have a pet in the house, but not have to commit to having one for the long term in case they plan to move overseas or interstate, or just away.
Helen drops her head into her hands and starts to cry. Travis puts his arms around her but she doesn’t move into them. Dan closes his browser tabs: a low-carb diet site, a Seeing Eye Dogs Australia site, Will’s Facebook page. He had known Travis and Helen from their school days, but went to a different university and missed the years where Will came into their lives. He remembers Will mostly as a body that moved with heavy footsteps between Helen’s room, where he spoke softly and gently, and the kitchen, where he whistled folk songs from the ’60s that Dan knew but couldn’t name. Occasionally Will would visit Travis’ door, and there he boomed with laughter. Mostly, Dan remembers an earnestness and sincerity in Will’s voice that made him trust him. It made him believe that in another setting, if he weren’t living with Helen and Travis, he and Will would be friends. Part of Dan is relieved they weren’t, and another part is guilty for thinking it.
“I might just try and do this on my own for now,” Helen says.
“Okay.” Travis resigns himself to how little he can do. “Just let us know if you want any help later.”
She takes the laptop from him and leaves the living room. Travis stretches his legs up onto the couch where Helen was, and Dan opens a new tab but doesn’t know what to search.
“How many words did Will’s family say she could write?” Dan asks once Helen is out of earshot.
“Forty.” Travis shakes his head as he speaks.
“Forty?”
“Forty.”
“That’s fucked.”
“I know. That was already eleven.”
They laugh together, then feel guilty for laughing, then frustrated, then guilty again.
“They shouldn’t have asked her to do it.” Dan closes his computer and faces Travis.
“His family lives in South Africa. They don’t know anyone else.”
“But she shouldn’t be doing it.”
“But then there’d be no note at the funeral. There’d be nothing to speak of his life here. Or if there was it would literally be ‘William was a loyal and caring friend who was loved by all and did well in his studies’ or some crap like that. At least it’ll be good this way.’
“Why are you even calling him William anyway?” Dan’s voice rises. “You called him Will, so why can’t you just call him Will?”
“Because there’ll be family and it’s his full name and it might be disrespectful to cut it short or some shit.”
“Disrespectful? Calling him Will is disrespectful but telling Helen to summarise her dead boyfriend into forty words isn’t?”
“Shhhh!” Travis gets up from the couch and shuts the door from the living room to the hallway and Helen’s room.
“Sorry. Dan lowers his head and his voice. “This is just so fucking stupid.”
“I know.”
“You’re not going to fly to the funeral with her?”
“Not invited.”
“So you’re not going to see him again?”
“Don’t know if I want to.” Travis says, then sighs. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean, the body—”
“I know.”
Dan looks back to his computer and starts reading through the news. Travis takes his phone out, stares at it for a little while, and then opens Tinder. He remembers introducing Will to Helen after class, the same week they met at soccer, and immediately feeling like an accessory to the conversation. He laughs to himself and the memory of Will that he keeps in his mind about how simple that felt compared to this app, but then it reminds him that Will is gone. The silence of the room becomes too much for him. He looks to Dan.
“What are you looking at?” Travis asks.
“Reading about low-carb diets.” Dan doesn’t know why he lied.
“Dude, you’re not even fat.”
“Yeah but I still have fat on me, and maybe I wouldn’t mind losing it. I like to improve myself.”
“Sure.”
“Why, what are you looking at?”
Tinder is still open on his phone. “Just reading the news.” Travis knows why he lied.
“About what?”
“Bloody… ” he pauses to think. “North Korea and shit.”
“Have you seen that video of the missi—”
The living room door opens and Helen comes out with her laptop. Her face is red but her eyes aren’t teary.
“Hey.” Her voice is stronger than it was before. “Can you guys help me with something?”
Travis moves over to let Helen sit where she was. Dan squeezes onto the same couch to join them.
“There are just some blank bits where I didn’t know how to express things.” Helen tells them as she hands over the computer.
Travis and Dan read through the note together.
“That’s really beautiful.” Dan says when he finishes.
Travis nods as he reads through the last two lines.
“Thanks. But yeah, it’s just those blank spots I need to fill,” says Helen. “And if you think anything else could change. They said I can go up to a hundred words now too.”
They read through it again, together, out loud and in their heads. Helen has given new a meaning to some of those words they put to paper before.
“Well,” Travis places his hands on the keyboard and changes sensitive to intuitive. “He hated being called sensitive.”
“Why don’t we just do that?” Dan picks this as his time to speak. “Just use the words that he liked to think of himself as. And I guess also words that he didn’t like, but should probably have gotten used to.”
They laugh together without guilt.
Helen deletes adventurous and writes fun-loving.
“Oh he wouldn’t like that one.” Travis says with a smile.
Travis inserts potential.
“What about here?” Helen asks. “How he, I don’t know, made you believe in yourself when he spoke to you.”
“Comforting? Encouraging?” Travis proposes.
Dan takes the computer and writes earnest and sincere.
As they work, they forget that Will is gone. Their memories meld in with their words and together they become something new, something that is almost as tangible as what they have put onto the computer screen.
They finish, their words settled onto the page, and their memories of Will settle back into their minds.
“Perfect.” Helen says with a smile.
About the author
Eugene is a Chinese-Australian writer based in Melbourne, with works published online in Global Hobo and in print in Mous Magazine, Eyebag Magazine, and Page Seventeen Literary Magazine. He is overly emotional about food, has a fear of giant squid, and posts at mr.pocari.