The beer fizzed in his hand, cold against his burning skin. Jona shut the fridge with a thud, the sound echoing through the hollow house. Sunlight streamed in, uninvited, golden and heavy. It poured across the tiles, traced the counters, and fell against the curtains, which then swayed like they remembered how to dance. Birds chirped outside as if nothing had changed. As if the world hadn’t cracked years ago.
That smell again.
The scent drifted from the kitchen like a ghost—sharp, acidic, familiar. Onions, vinegar and something else he never quite figured out. Jona’s nose crinkled, his stomach turning the way it always did. That lingering, pungent trace had outlived the moment it was born in. No matter how many candles he lit, how many windows he opened, it always returned. Like the past refusing to stay buried.
He paused and remembered her laughter echoing from that kitchen, light and strange, like she had been drunk on air. There’d been something unhinged about it, something so unlike her, it made him halt mid-step. He’d walked in slowly, confused, heart skipping. Her eyes had been shining, her back bent over a bubbling pot filled with mashed greens.
“Mom, why are you so happy?” he’d asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“This herb, Jona!” she giggled, pointing inside the pot, her voice full of mystery.
A second later, she fell limp in his arms like a puppet with cut strings. One moment vibrant, the next, a vacant vessel, still warm. No last words. No warning. Just that smile that lingered long after her breath had stopped.
He had screamed her name, in an attempt to wake her. Shouted it so hard his throat bled. Now he just whispered it into the silence.
Years had passed, but time moved like molasses in an old jar. Thick. Slow. Stubborn. Grief didn’t ebb—it sank its roots into his bones. Headaches came and went like tides, sometimes dull, sometimes splitting. His life flattened into repetition. The world blurred.
People told him it would get better – The doctor with the soft voice and cold hands. The neighbor who left casseroles but never came inside. The priest who spoke of peace like it was a place you could buy a ticket to. Even his aunt, eyes heavy with her own grief, had whispered it while folding his mother’s clothes.
“Time heals, Jona. You’ll see.”
But they all lied.
Not out of cruelty, but because people always do. They lie to fill the silence. They lie to make grief sound manageable, to convince themselves that pain doesn’t last forever.
They lied about happiness, too, like it was something you could earn if you smiled enough, or prayed enough, or paid enough.
But it doesn’t work like that. Pain stays. It changes shape. It learns to live in your bones. And Jona had stopped waiting for it to leave.
There were days he didn’t speak at all. Others when he talked to the air, hoping it would mold itself into her voice. Nights were the worst. The silence pressed in, heavier than walls.
He slumped onto the sofa, beer in hand, gaze locked on the ceiling like it might split open and offer something—answers, a sign, a voice. Anything. Even the whisper of her breath.
“Happy.” He muttered.
The word twisted on his tongue like something too foreign to say out loud, something he once knew but forgot the taste of. A phantom sensation of sweetness.
He lurched toward his laptop, heart thudding with sudden clarity. Maybe happiness could be found. Maybe it was a formula. A pattern. A list he could follow like a spell. Fingers flying, he opened Google and searched: “happy,” “joy,” “money,” “meaning.”
Tabs opened like doors to nowhere, flooding his screen. Nothing gave him more than surfaced motivational quotes and cheap promises. “Happiness is a choice.” “Smile, it’s free.” All of it made him want to scream. It felt like mocking. Like someone dressing wounds with glitter.
In the midst of his search, he could hear the faint ring of his phone. Jona reached and picked up the phone without looking away from his computer, as if answering was just another reflex.
“Hello? Mr. Jona, I’m calling from Clinic WH. We have… bad news.”
He didn’t hear the rest. The word “happy” on his laptop blurred, then shattered. Letters melting into the glow of the screen, unreadable. Tears welled, uninvited, stinging his eyes. His chest ached like something caving in.
His body gave out, and he could feel nothing but his body crumbling onto the floor, beer bottles clinking as they rolled around him like mocking laughter. His mouth fell open, saliva pooling, breath shallow and broken.
“Happy.” He snorted, voice hoarse, before jolting upright like a man pulled out of a nightmare.
“I still have twenty-four hours left to live”
His voice cracked under the weight of it. A whisper, a confession, a scream that bounced off the walls and came back emptier.
He stared at the clock.
Twenty-four hours.
He scribbled a list on the back of a receipt with shaky hands.
“Eat something good.”
“Take a walk.”
“Call someone.”
“Smile.”
“Feel something.” He underlined the last one twice.
Jona then microwaved a frozen lasagna he’d kept in his freezer for years. It smelled like plastic and salt. He took two bites, then gagged and washed the after taste down with warm beer.
He opened the blinds wide, sat facing the sun and let it pour over him. People said sunlight helps. He stared into it until his eyes watered—but it didn’t warm him. Not really.
He walked barefoot onto the porch, the concrete warm under his skin. He picked up a dandelion growing through a crack and made a wish with it. “Let me feel joy like people say” he wished. The seeds scattered, but nothing bloomed inside.
He dug through drawers and found an old voicemail from her—the last one. “Pick up some lemons on the way home. I want to try that tart recipe.” He played it five times. The sixth, it hurt too much.
He stood in front of the mirror and practiced smiling – Wide. Gentle. Crooked. All of them felt like masks. All of them cracked when he blinked.
He searched “how to feel joy” again, as if the internet would be kinder this time but it wasn’t.
He watched a TED talk on gratitude. Wrote a list.
“I have a house. A fridge. A body that works. The sky.”
He looked up at the sky. It looked back at him, vast and indifferent.
Then he picked up his phone, scrolled through names he hadn’t spoken to in years. His thumb hovered over Aaron – cousin. He tapped Call. Listened to the ring. Once. Twice. Five times.
“Hey, it’s Aaron. Leave a message.”
But he didn’t. Instead, Jona hung up, then sat there, staring at the call log like it might change. It didn’t.
He drew a bath, lit a candle – lavender, supposedly calming – and stared at the water. Didn’t get in. The flame flickered until it died.
He took out an old journal. Wrote to her.
“What was in that herb? What were you laughing at? Did you know it was the last time?” The ink bled through the page. His hand shook. He didn’t finish the letter.
He stood in the middle of the room with music loud in his ears. Tried to dance to an old love song. He moved once. Twice. Stopped. His limbs felt like someone else’s.
He searched for “hug therapy,” online, then wrapped his arms around a pillow. It didn’t hold him back.
He wrote “I’m happy” on a sticky note and stuck it to the fridge. He came back a few minutes and tore it down.
He opened an old shoebox filled with photos and dried flowers. Smelled the crumbled petals. They smelled like dust. He whispered her name. The walls didn’t answer.
He drew a smiley face on the fogged-up bathroom mirror. It melted slowly. Until it was nothing.
He counted blessings. Counted regrets. But the regrets outnumbered everything.
He did everything they said would help. Everything they promised would save him.
And still, nothing.
That’s when it broke.
He staggered toward the table, knocking over another bottle. Glass exploded across the tiles like ice breaking underfoot. He didn’t flinch.
“Happiness?! Is smoking weed the only way out?!” he howled, fists clenched, throat raw, veins bulging like ropes beneath his skin.
The room pulsed with his rage, the walls breathing with him. He screamed again, louder. Curses, questions, grief—all of it flooding out. His voice cracked and caught, until there was nothing left to release.
Then silence.
A beam of light touched the floor again. Unbothered. Slow. Soft. It crept toward him like an invitation.
His breath slowed. His eyes, red and wet, followed the beam to the window. He walked toward it. He meant to pull the curtains shut—to hide the world one last time.
But he didn’t.
Something outside caught him.
A child raced along the edge of the lake, a bright kite in his hands. His mother ran beside him, arms open, laughter spilling into the sky. Loud. Joyous. Free. The kind of laugh that fills the air and never really fades.
Jona froze.
The boy’s feet kicked up dust. The kite spun and soared. The wind tugged at it like a second parent guiding the flight. And the mother’s laughter—full, alive—rose higher than the kite itself.
He could almost hear her laugh in it.
Jona’s eyes stayed on them. His breath deepened. The noise inside his chest began to quiet. His hands stopped shaking.
Something inside him—the part that had clenched shut for years—loosened.
He smiled. Just like she had done.
And in that still, delicate moment, Jona let go. His knees gave in. His eyes fluttered shut. His body folded to the ground like a leaf finally ready to rest.
The smile remained.
Outside, the laughter lingered.
Inside, his phone buzzed once, then again.
And then, it rang.
The soft strum of the Beatles “Here Comes The Sun” filled the silence. Light spilled across the floor, catching the edge of his hand. But Jona didn’t move.
The song kept playing. The kite kept climbing.
