Prologue from Lives (A Novel)

It is night now.  And how well I know you.
There is a light near the horizon, but it is not the dawn.  There are more hours still to pass before the dawn.
It is warm here--and peaceful.  Like those nights when I rested my fingers on your flesh in sleep.  Like the rains that came swiftly from the west and looked upon our silent windows.  If you were here now, I would tell how unfathomable this world is, and how sadly empty.  But you are not here.
In the distance, when the wind subsides for a moment, I can hear the waterfall.  Or perhaps that too is only the sound of the wind.  So many memories confuse this moment--so many nights have combined themselves and become this night.  This night of wakefulness.  These memories soon to pass into the dark waters of time.  This life soon to be extinguished.
To begin this tale, any hour of my life would serve us equally.  For I know that each moment has the same weight as the next, and that each is as significant or insignificant as all the others.  That each of those moments was life itself--that there is no summation.
So let the beginning be ruled by chance--as all beginnings are ruled.  Let me say that it began here.  And while we pass the time, let us pretend that the truth was not otherwise.

— John A. Youril