The Chorus
A pluralized first-person narration occasionally slips into the text representing “men who died of AIDS.” This chorus collectively identifies as “we” and directs commentary, advice, and history lessons to another collective: the gay men of today:
“Trust us: There is a nearly perfect balance between the past and the future. As we become the distant past, you become a future few of us would have imagined.”
Love Is Never Simple
One of the underlying themes fueling the story is that love can’t just quite ever be simple. Complications arise from all sides and angles intent on creating obstructions to that whole dream of its course running smooth. Metaphorically speaking, even the good stuff about it proves to be a hurdle:
“For the past year, Neil has assumed that love was like a liquid pouring into a vessel, and that the longer you loved, the more full the vessel became, until it was entirely full. The truth is that over time, the vessel expands as well.”
Forget All That Growing Fonder Stuff
It is an oldie, but perhaps has fallen out of usage for the youth of today. Absence, the saying goes, makes the heart grow fonder. Example: if you want to make someone really miss you and realize how special you are, stay away for awhile. Yeah, if that bit of wisdom hasn’t become a mystery yet to young lovers, it definitely should and be replaced with something like this:
“…the best antidote for doubt is presence. Magic naturally fades over distance. But proximity—well, when it works, proximity amplifies magic.”
Don’t Be Tweetering Twit
The chorus died long before social media arrived. They express strong views about it from beyond the hereafter, however. And that view is tinged with the certainty of absolute truth. The dead know things and it is too bad they can’t post a comment now and then:
“It’s a highly deceptive world, one that constantly asks you to comment but doesn’t really care what you have to say. The illusion of participation can sometimes lead to participation. But more often than not, it only leads to more illusion, dressed in the guise of reality.”
Darkness
Darkness is more prevalent in modern literature as a metaphor than any single other concept. Just start looking for it and pretty soon you will find you don’t need to look for it: it will seem to be everywhere. This may be a love story, but darkness is pervasive:
“What strange creatures we are, to find silence peaceful, when permanent silence is the thing we most dread. Nighttime is not that. Nighttime still rustles, still creaks and whispers and trembles in its throat. It is not darkness we fear, but our own helplessness within it.”
