(Originally posted 6/18/26)
I kissed your lips and broke your heart
“Murph!”
I turned away from the heated debate we’d been having on just how many copies of the latest Image books to risk ordering and saw that magnificent smile. I’d known her for less than a month, but I already knew she was one of the most important people I’d ever meet. I grinned to match, and then I noticed the hair. Her short brown locks were now jet black, with a slim white stripe in the front. She’d had her hair like that the first time I ever saw her, at a time when I couldn’t have imagined having the guts to just walk up and introduce myself.
Life occasionally throws you a second chance. Months later, she had walked up and introduced herself to me. I was holding court at a party with my nerd brethren talking about nerd things; she’d been seeking refuge from a guy who wasn’t taking no for an answer. When she overheard us talking about roleplaying games, she asked if I would run a game she’d just bought; when I assented, she grabbed me and the most promising of the bunch and we spent the rest of the night engaged in the first of many gaming sessions. While everyone else slept it off, Sid and I had stayed up past dawn, talking about everything.
I couldn’t help but notice every eye in the place upon her as she marched straight up to me. To be fair, any woman walking into a comic shop back then would draw attention, especially one as pretty as she was. “What can I do for you?” I asked, attempting to lean on the counter nonchalantly and accidentally tipping over several tubes of dice.
“I wanted to ask you—” she paused and cocked her head. The shop stereo had been playing a track by U2 when she’d walked in, but now it flipped over to an obscure Nick Cave number. Her eyes widened. “What are you listening to?”
I stepped back into the back room and grabbed the CD case, presenting it to her. I’d bought it a few days previously at the indie record store around the corner. The soundtrack to the film Until the End of the World by Wim Wenders. Her jaw dropped. “No way. You’ve seen the movie?”
“Yeah, it’s fantastic,” I replied. She looked skeptical, so I quoted a few lines from the opening monologue, Eugene talking about loving Claire, self-destructive faults and all. She looked at me like I’d just done some kind of magic trick. “Super weird, kind of self-indulgent, but so beautiful.”
“And sad,” she agreed, handing back the case. “I love that film. I don’t know anyone else who does.”
“Well, now you do,” I said, grinning again. “So what can I do for you? I can cut you a great deal on some second-hand pogs.” She laughed, shaking her head, and I noticed everyone clocking the conversation. Not only was there an attractive woman in the shop, she was talking to Murphy and he was making her laugh. Definitely the End Times.
She seemed to remember why she was there. “I need to ask you a favor.”
“Shoot,” I replied.
“The guy I’m dating just dumped me, and I need to see the ocean.” She named two of our friends who were already on board and asked me if I’d come too.
“Sure,” I said. “When?”
“Now,” she replied with an impish grin.
I laughed. Then: “Uh, right now?”
She nodded.
I gestured at the shop helplessly. “I’m kind of at work.”
She looked mildly disappointed. “When do you get off?”
“6:00?”
“I’ll come back and get you at 6:00,” she said.
(I’d later learn that she’d steered him into dumping her with the dye job. He wasn’t a fan of her more mercurial tendencies and apparently felt threatened by her sudden adoption of a gaggle of nerdy guys; she’d done her hair in the hopes it would be the last straw and he’d storm out. It had worked.)
I take one, one, one ‘cause you left me
Hours later we were rocketing south on the interstate. I was piled into the bomber with three people who I’d met a few weeks previous, and none of us knew each other’s real names. The driver was deejaying, flipping CDs and keeping the volume high enough to overwhelm the wind whipping through the open windows. We’d just gotten through the Violent Femmes’ self-titled album, and he followed it up with the Enigma debut that consisted of Gregorian chants layered under techno beats. It seemed absolutely perfect for the dark night around us as we flew far from home in the dark interstitials between towns.
Someone had said something funny—I’d like to think it was me, but probably not—and Sid was laughing wildly, turning away. She glanced out the window, then did a sudden double-take. I watched as she leaned far out, shouting something that was lost to the slipstream. She ducked back in, wild-eyed, and said, “Holy shit, Murph, you’ve got to see this!” She then leaned even further out, nearly sitting on the door, looking up into the sky.
I leaned out myself, glancing up, and all of a sudden, I lost my breath. I was staring up into the wildest night sky I’d ever seen. This far from civilization, it was dark enough that every star stood out, with the glowing clouds of the Milky Way sprawling above us. I gaped at the brilliance, my wit utterly failing me. I met her gaze and she smiled at me across the roof of the car, her hair whipping wildly, before we returned to marveling at the sight.
The guy in the passenger seat leaned out to look, swore impressively, and goggled up at the stars with us.
Then the driver did the same.
Everyone screamed at him at once to keep his eyes on the road.
Somehow we made it to the beach.
My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore
We were sitting out on the water, a few hours before dawn, while our friends slept off the drive. Sid and I were night owls, and we were talking and sharing while a tropical low that didn’t quite make it into a depression slid northwards towards us. The clouds were beginning to build, but the storm wouldn’t properly arrive and drive us inside until daybreak. We were occupying a pair of wooden lounges halfway between the seawall and the surf, her with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
I wish I could remember everything we talked about. We were learning about all the commonalities we shared, and there were a lot of them. I’d said something witty—she had a way of closing her eyes and smiling when something particularly amused her, a long, slow double-blink almost like the thing cats do when they really like you. As she stubbed out her smoke and took a sip of her drink, she spotted a break in the growing clouds above us and pointed.
“See those stars? Those three, in a line?” she asked.
I was enough of a space nerd to recognize the belt of Orion, and named the mythological hunter. She grinned at me. I’d clearly passed another test.
“If you’re ever feeling lost or lonely, find Orion, and know that I’m looking up at those same stars. And you’ll know you’re not alone.”
She hit me with the pinball smile, and I nearly blew everything. I’ve been compelled; I’ve been impelled. I’ve felt a power upon me. I’ve done dumb shit that I couldn’t fathom doing mere moments after I’d done it. But in that moment I nearly fucked up so bad. It would’ve been the worst fuckup I’ve ever made, and friends, I’ve been married. Twice.
I nearly branded myself forever atop the list of guys who’d fucked up their friendship with her by making a clumsy pass. The only defense I can muster is I was caught up in one hell of a moment with a pretty girl who’d just said something beautiful. I opened my mouth, and I’m not sure what dumbass line would’ve marched out of it with mind-meltingly inappropriate confidence, because I bit down on the words with Herculean effort. They skidded to a stop in my throat so abruptly I felt like I could taste smoke. The willpower that it took to bear down on whatever idiotic attempt I was about to make has got to be legendary. If there’s ever any need for somebody to pick up a Green Lantern ring, I’m your man. I’ll whip Sinestro’s ass.
I noticed her looking at me quizzically, and I realized the silence had spun out a bit while I tried to reboot my language center. I tried to come up with a quip and utterly failed. I tried to think of something, anything to say, and my brain was just in vapor-lock. I forgot every single word of English I knew. I took a sip of my own drink to try to cover and lamely pointed out at the storm clouds miles and miles to the south of us. She turned to follow my gesture.
And the goddess loves a fool, because right at that moment the biggest blast of lightning I’ve ever seen spread out across the southern sky. It was a beautiful, arcing display that seemed to reach all the way to the shoreline and lit up the heavens, painting all the dark clouds in stark relief. It was the second most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and the thunder rolled and echoed for what seemed like minutes.
I finally glanced back at her. She met my gaze, wide-eyed, silent and smiling. I’d been a Discordian long enough to never look a gift coincidence in the mouth, and I was enough of a showman to realize when I’ve been handed a moment. I smirked and dropped her a wink.
She threw her head back and the sound of her laughter is something I’ll never forget if I live to the century mark. And in that moment, one of the most enduring pieces of my own personal mythos was born. From that point on, I’d always be linked with storms in her mind. (I still have the rain stick she gave me later that year.) We stayed out on the beach and talked for hours, until the dawn and the rising winds finally sent us inside to get some rest.
(Sid later told me that she’d stolen the Orion line from somebody. I told her it was okay, all the greatest artists steal.)
And if that day comes, I know we can win / I wonder if I’ll ever see you again
Happy birthday, Sid. Miss you something fierce.
This is the second important date that’s rolled around since I found out, and somehow I’m still functional. The first was the anniversary of her passing, and I was absolutely planning for a self-destructive spiral. I’d bought a bottle of applejack—my third choice, as I chickened out of the 151 or the Goldschlager that both had historical meaning—and I was prepared to do myself some mischief with it. A couple days before, though, I ended up in the hospital for a weekend stay due to a minor injury deciding to have a go at trying to kill me.
As I was sitting in the ER on a snowy Saturday morning having a nurse perforate me, we got to discussing the Rian Johnson movie Wake Up Dead Man and what amazing cinematography it contained. She stepped out after running my IV, and I thought to myself how Sid would’ve absolutely rolled her eyes at one of my favorite things about the film, Johnson’s heavy-handed but amazing use of light. And as if on cue, the sun broke out from behind a snow cloud and filled the triage room with precisely the same golden light from Benoit Blanc’s Damascus moment at the end.
“Now you’re just showin’ off,” I muttered.
I was released a few days later, a year to the day of her passing. I got to go home on the same day she didn’t. (Or I didn’t get to go home on the same day she did, if you want to look at it that way.) I couldn’t touch the bottle due to the meds I was on, so it sat in my pantry as I healed up.
Closing on Sid’s birthday, though, I figured this was the time I was going to properly fuck up. I’d begged off of a couple of after-work get togethers, because I figured the odds were good that if you put me in a room with drink I’d have a Byronesque depressive fit and end up saying something morbid and creepifying about the transient nature of existence and really ruin everyone’s evening. I’d planned to come home tonight and black myself out, and roll into work tomorrow with the mater and pater of all hangovers.
But then I got word that it was going to rain to beat the band today. And I realized that if I were a less rational man, a more superstitious man, a more sentimental man, I’d have to acknowledge the fact that she absolutely shared a love of storms and dreary weather with me, and she’d know that this would’ve been one of the few things that might keep me on an even keel on a really bad day. It rained heavily and gloriously, and my coworkers couldn’t figure out why I was so happy about it. And the bottle remains unemptied, and I remain unwrecked.
Now, am I honestly of the belief that my city got a day of soaking, nigh-tropical rain because one of the most-beloved of all my many ghosts is looking out for me and wants me to be happy?
Of course not. It would be utter lunacy to suggest that were the case.
But if it were…
Wouldn’t that be a hell of a thing?