I awoke at 3:41am, surprised that Jonathan was not in bed.
I left to see where he was: in the fully lit living room, still on the phone with his sister, Rebecca. The two had been sharing a phone call for the last… ten, fourteen hours? Jonathan explained to me earlier that afternoon that she needed research help to complete her final essay, an examination on how radio and TV codified “black sound” — how to make a character “sound Black” while in an audio-only format. Since the afternoon, I saw how Jonathan’s mood shifted, from a determination to not be lowered by the desperate situation and to keep laughter in the mix, to now barely continuing to look at his laptop screen. We made eye contact, and he let Rebecca know that he could barely focus on anything anymore. After hardly another sound, they ended the call.
He slowly walked towards me, but did not look at me, and did not speak. Something within him had been shut down, the lights no longer on. I had known him in exhaustion, but nothing like this. Slowly, we embraced into a hug.