They passed by it every day. On the way to school, to work, to family reunions, to funerals. It stood out like the last missing piece in a puzzle, like a stubborn speck of dust on a pristine countertop. It had always been there - or so they thought - through the passing seasons, through the coming and going of countless lives. They could not imagine a life without it. On the drive to school, the children looked up from their homework and glanced at it. As their parents drove to work, they would study it as they waited for the traffic light. They promised themselves that they would go explore it sometime, maybe with some friends or by themselves. While they sat at their desks, waiting for bosses or teachers to dismiss them, it lingered in their minds, neglected under a pile of more pressing matters. 

Then one day it was gone. Everyone noticed, but nobody talked about it. It was astonishing, too - how something that had always been patiently waiting for them as they hurried past - could just vanish. Though they had seen this coming, now they could only stare at the blurry condensation on the windows, each breath revealing more of what they had been passing by, what he had been passing by and had passed by forever. And yet he relished this passing - days and weeks and months of school, slipping away from his hands, which were always tightly clasped around a slender black pen, going over the nearly illegible notes scrawled in a thick notebook. He yearned for the long days to come and be over, for the tests to come and be over, for the long years to come and be over.///“Why don’t we go out for dinner tonight?” his mother would inquire, her eager face poking through the crack in his bedroom door. “Why don’t we go play some ping pong tomorrow?” his father would suggest. “Wanna come and hang out with us?” his friends would ask. The response was automatic, the words vibrating on his chapped lips: “I’ll pass.” 

Now they were tearing down the old buildings he passed by each day, bulldozers turning houses, homes, entire lives into beige dust settling uncomfortably onto his skin. He would be out of here by tomorrow, he thought as his feet pattered over the rough concrete of the overpass he had crossed countless times, the one that would be gone by dawn. He would be gone. His mother suggested a going-away party, but he passed. Later, he thought, later. It was intoxicating, like catching a whiff of secondhand cigarette smoke, something he could smell once and want forever. It was a drug, spiraling deeper into an endless abyss, jumping off a sheer cliff, knowing where he was yet unable to stop himself. 

He woke up in a cold sweat, a light snow falling outside the dormitory windows. He lay there quietly, listening to the rhythmic beat of the clock, something in his mind unsatiated. He had never bothered to lick his fingers and unseal the piled envelopes accumulating on his nightstand, as his mother had done. In them were stories of lives carefully recorded, lives that would soon be lost and forgotten. He would read them later, he promised. But something had been tugging at him, forcing him out of the haven of his bedsheets and down the cement stairs, each footstep echoing in the stairwell. A blast of glacial wind greeted him as he made his way to the mailbox, as if he had stumbled into the frozen foods section at the supermarket. His frigid fingers worked the rusted key into the tiny hole; the envelopes trickled out like water from a broken dam onto the untouched snow. The snow. How many times he had said later to his friends when they had gone sledding or skiing or had snowball fights together. What had he missed? 

A brackish tear trickled down the side of his numb face, a star-shaped wet blotch suddenly blossoming on the paper below. The tiny printed letters read: From - Massachusetts General Hospital. To - Mr. David Tian. These words were enough, but he still mercilessly ripped the envelope, the jagged edges of the broken paper separating like two irreconcilably mismatched puzzle pieces, the hole that had always been inside him widening into an abyss. Dear Mr. Tian, it began. It is with heavy hearts that we inform you… the paper began to blur. Your mother… 

He knew without reading it - instantly, like a seemingly-impossible math problem appearing on a test—while others struggled, he knew the answer. Yet a pang hit him—he no longer enjoyed, had never enjoyed what he was doing. Fury, guilt, sadness, regret, everything morphed into a strange relief, like mixing all the colors of playdough until they became a satisfying gray glob. He made his way to his car, fresh footsteps nearly obscured by accumulating snowdrifts. Outside, miles of frozen countryside passed by, years of lives passing by, and yet he sped toward the only one that mattered, making up for all that he had lost. 

“Mom!” She could no longer hear him. “Mom, let’s go out for dinner tonight. Mom, let’s go on a trip together. Mom, let’s…” He paused. “Mom…..” The glaring artificial light reflected off of his mother’s silvery hair, and he thought that made her even more beautiful. He had never really looked at his mother, he thought. Later. later. later. The words echoed in his ears, even in the silent hospital room. Later. The doctor rested one gloved hand on David’s shoulder. “We’re sorry…” he started. “Your mother… passed away… thirty minutes ago…” 

What had he missed? Later was now. Later had been before, an hour ago, a day ago, a month ago, a year ago, a lifetime ago. It was too late now. The moment had already passed, and it would not come back again. As he collapsed onto the plastic visitor chair, he promised himself that he would read the letters his mother had sent him. Later, he thought. Later.