lately I've been thinking
What a webcomic taught me about saying goodbye
I cried so much at a chapter of Now Recharging that I had to put my phone down. This is me trying to work out why death in stories hits me so hard.
Death has always been something that hits me hard, in stories more than anywhere. I used to think that was a bit embarrassing. Now I think stories are the one place where you get to rehearse a goodbye gently, with a page you can close and come back to.
The chapter doesn't do anything dramatic. Two characters sit on a roof. One of them knows. The other one figures it out a panel too late, like you do. That's it, and it wrecked me.
I think the reason is scale. The news gives you thousands of people at once, and my brain files it under weather. A story gives you one person, for long enough to know how they take their coffee. Then it asks you to let them go.
So I've stopped apologising for crying at comics. If fiction is where I practise caring, the practice counts. 🌧️
was hard to write