Joy With an Expiration Date, Dialogue: Goracio and Witness
Under a quiet sky, beside the fire. The night listens.
Witness:
You’ve been quiet.
Thinking?
Goracio:
I knew a couple.
Before they were a couple.
They were both married.
But love is love.
They fell hard.
Divorced.
Married each other.
They were happy.
Radiantly so.
Witness:
And the world?
Goracio:
Not happy.
Not with them.
Not with her.
She was 25 years older than him.
Funny how people protect gold diggers when the man is older
—
call it natural, even noble.
But when the woman’s older?
They get dark.
They ask: What is she looking for in a young husband?
As if joy has a gendered expiration date.
Witness:
Did she care?
Goracio:
She said she didn’t.
Not about the crowd.
But she worried about time.
Her body fading faster.
She could slow it down, maybe.
But not stop it.
She knew it would happen.
Still—she wanted those years.
Two, three, maybe four.
She said that happiness couldn’t be replaced by anything else.
Witness:
Did it last?
Goracio:
Three and a half years.
Then they broke up.
He married someone else.
She didn’t.
Witness:
Was she broken?
Goracio:
No.
She wasn’t.
She chose the fire, knowing the cold would come.
And when it did—she stood in it.
***
Author’s Note
The fire has dimmed. The story remains.
People say they want happiness.
But what they often mean is a moment—a flash of joy so vivid it burns through the gray.
And for that moment, they will sacrifice almost anything: reputation, stability, even the comfort of being understood.
This is not a story of failure.
It is a story of choosing joy, even when it comes with an expiration date.
***
Comments