The Past

I re-read Looking For Alaska today.

And in it, Pudge was constantly being reminded of how Alaska died, how she was no longer here, but stuck in some cold coffin, buried and maggot ridden, slowly fading away.

And yet she was, was a constant ache in his heart and gut, how she was always there, even if just to remind you that she wasn't.

And even if she was gone, even if she has past, was the past, inside, she was still there.
Still alive in her glorious, curvy, moody, unpredictable ways, inside each of those who remember her.

And she could not be forgotten, not fully, not completely. Because one would always be thinking of her now, and later, and later, and on and on and on and on and on and on.

There is no use thinking of it as the past, because you always think of it as the present.