ELEGÍA

Words by Genesis Isla Marisol 
Art by Ari Kim

For Stacy 

North Central Texas, late October 2010: chain-smoking Marlboro 27s with her three best friends inside their usual booth at the local Waffle House, the oldest member of The Sisterhood of the Traveling White Lighter talks about how much she idolizes Ian Curtis. Her friends keep her company as she tattoos data plot signals from a radio pulsar, as made famous by the album art for Joy Division’s debut album Unknown Pleasures, across her ribcage. 

Inside the bathroom at the hardcore show, she passes them a carefully constructed apple pipe. Outside a house party, she introduces them to Lean. Rapping along to Three 6 Mafia in the backseat of a Chevy Suburban SUV, she teaches them the way of Triple C’s—demonstrates how to crush Xanax into a fine pixie dust atop a jewel CD case and snort it discreetly. 

Burnt umber leaves fall over a field where sunflowers once grew tall to reach toward the warmth of the sun each summer, and the oldest member of the Sisterhood, only 23-years-old, loses control like her strict Catholic parents from Columbia always said she would. There is no obituary, no casket, no funeral. There are no prayer cards, no flowers, no candles. 

Without closure, the three remaining members of the Sisterhood of the Traveling White Lighter set out a silver goblet, filling it to the brim with purple drank. They construct an altar to their fallen friend made of glittering 4Loko cans, passing around a single white lighter. Holding its blue flame to twenty-three candles, they light each one for every year of her short life—the same age Ian Curtis was when he died. Together they sit and watch silently as twenty-three wicks melt in the darkness until eventually each one of their yellow tips flickers out, just like the lights went out inside the Waffle House the first time they slid back into their usual booth without her.