Go ahead, divorce your wife. A funny thing will happen.

I was flipping through my favorite book, when all of a sudden, all the words became, “Elizabeth.” “Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth,” they read. The chapter heading? “Elizabeth.” The book title? “Elizabeth.” The only thing different was the final sentence on the final page. It said: “She left you.”

I panicked and I picked up another book. Perhaps it was just a simple misprint that went unnoticed, I thought to myself. But to my horror, the second book was even worse. Every single line went like this: “She left you. She left you. She left you. She left you.” Was this a sequel to the first book? I checked the cover to make sure. But all it said was, “Forever.”

I looked up at the sky and I swear the very clouds looked like Elizabeth. Do you know what I mean? Now that she’s gone, she’s everywhere. Oh that’s my darling by the sun!

In the massive shapes that moved above me, I saw the days I’d misemployed. A little tortured cloud spoke out, “Your hours were work, when they should have been play!” Should have been play! Yes! I agree! But the little cloud twisted and twisted and crumpled into something else. And yet, the message still remained. “Should have been play, should have been play, should have been play!” Was it the air that spoke? Or was it a wrinkle in my brain? It doesn’t matter. Because yes, rather than jogging by myself, I should have taken her hand and walked with her. What’s the hurry if the destination is the heart? Oh rather than striving to capture life, I should have put the pen down and enjoyed it. I should have looked into her eyes when I had the chance. Now I’ll have to settle with staring at the stars. Ha! As though the stars compared.

“You would have lost her anyway,” you say. “If not today, then some other day due to death.” Yes, but that was never much too certain anyway. I may have triumphed over life if only for her sake. It sounds ridiculous, yes, but I’ll never know. There are many things that haven’t happened yet but will. From the vantage point of this present Earth, they seem impossible—but they’re not. Nothing is impossible. Not anything but history. “History? History, why?” Because it’s already happened. I’ll always know that we divorced. It’s a fact I cannot change. Oh! I’d rather death’s mysteries than the surety of this anguished life.

“You’ll find someone else,” you say. “Years ago, you didn’t have these memories you now cherish so much. Well, years from now you’ll make new memories. And those new memories will be unbearable to part with. You’ll see. You’ll make new reasons to live.”

New excuses, rather. As though love were interchangeable. “Switch the girl, switch the face—just fill the void in whatever way you can. Your existence is a shipwreck. Gather up the nearest flotsam and stopper up your holes. Sail, wretch! It doesn’t matter where. The ocean lasts forever. Sail!”

You sound like the very God who solaced Job. New children, new clothes. “Cheer up. Your wife was an old boot. I’ve made you another one. Walk!” A cruel perspective.

I’d rather myself and death and Nothing, than have anything to do with such a God and such a life that He’s created.