I don't feel like I am allowed to cry. But I can't help it. I remember the sunset on October 6, 2023. It was a peaceful night. I was alone and I went for a hike. I felt an ease. By Eve Barlow [evebarlow.substack.com] I came home and sat on the couch, and then while I was sitting on the couch, in the same position, unmoved, events began unfolding with incremental videos and tweets and images of sheer horror and the room didn't change, the couch felt the same, but the invisible thread that held our whole world order snapped, and all the compartments of our lives tumbled, and there was a white noise in the otherwise still and silent room, and that white noise grew louder and more deafening, and I could no longer hear anything else. It was as if a million atoms exploded, and I didn't know how to put the universe back together again. I am sitting on the same couch now, in the same spot, with the same stillness and the white noise remains.