Description: Chapter 1 that sadness feels heavier underwater I''ll hold my breath and tell you what I mean: I first discovered the Fading Girl two months and two days ago, soon after summer began dripping its smugly sunny smile all over the place. I was with Alan, per usual. We had fallen down the YouTube rabbit hole, which was a thing we did from time to time. Generally speaking, I hate YouTube, mostly because Alan is all, I just have to show you this one thing, yo, but inevitably one thing becomes seventeen things, and before I know it, I''m watching a sea otter operate a vending machine, thinking, Where the fuck did I go wrong? And look: I am not immune to the allure of the sea otter, but at a certain point a guy has to wonder about all the life decisions he''s made that have landed him on a couch, watching a glorified weasel press H9 for a bag of SunChips. Quiet, and a little sad, but in a real way, drifting through the Rosa-Haas pool--I fucking love it here. I would live here. For the sake of precision: the Fading Girl video is a rapid time-lapse compilation of photographs clocking in at just over twelve minutes. It''s entitled One Face, Forty Years: An Examination of the Aging Process , and underneath it a caption reads: "Daily self-portraits from 1977 to 2015. I got tired." (I love that last part, as if the Fading Girl felt the need to explain why she hadn''t quite made it the full forty years . ) In the beginning, she''s probably in her early twenties, with blonde hair, long and shimmery, and bright eyes like a sunrise through a waterfall. At about the halfway mark the room changes, which I can only assume means she moved, but in the background, her possessions remain the same: a framed watercolor of mountains, a porcelain Chewbacca figurine, and elephants everywhere. Statues, posters, T-shirts--the Fading Girl had an elephant obsession, safe to say. She''s always indoors, always alone, and--other than the move, and a variety of haircuts--she looks the same in every photo: no smile, staring straight into the camera, every day for forty years. Always the same, until: changes. Okay, I have to breathe now. I love this moment: breaking the surface, inhale, wet hair in the hot sun. Alan is all, "Dude." The moment would be better alone, to be honest. "That was like a record," says Val. "You okay?" A few more deep breaths, a quick smile, and . . . I love this moment even more: dipping beneath the surface. Something about being underwater allows me to feel at a higher capacity--the silence and weightlessness, I think. It''s my favorite thing about swimming. The earlier shots are scanned-in Polaroids, but as the time lapse progresses and the resolution of the photos increases, the brightness of the Fading Girl begins to diminish: little by little, the hair thins; little by little, the eyes dim; little by little, the face withers, the skin droops, the bright young waterfall becomes a darkened millpond, one more victim in the septic tank of aging. And it doesn''t make me sad so much as leave an impression of sadness, like watching a stone sink but never hit bottom. Every day for forty years. I''ve watched the video hundreds of times now: at night before bed, in the morning before school, in the library during lunch, on my phone during class, in my head during the in-betweens, I hum the Fading Girl like a song over and over again, and every time it ends I swear I''ll never watch it again. But like the saddest human boomerang, I always come back. Twelve minutes of staring at your screen and watching a person die. It''s not violent. It''s not immoral or shameful; nothing is done to her that isn''t done to all of us, in turn. It''s called An Examination of the Aging Process , but I call bullshit. That girl isn''t aging; she''s fading. And I can''t look away. There it is, the inevitable shoulder tap. Time to join the land of the breathing.

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