Yes, friends and Instagram followers, the rumors are true. After years of blissful partnership, we’re opening our relationship.

Now, before you blow up our DMs, you should know: we’re not looking for a third. We’re not trying to sleep with other people, nor is this only a prologue to a long, painful divorce, requiring multiple Substack subscriptions to explain to you, our closest circle of rubberneckers.

No, beloveds, we’re opening our marriage to the void.

You may ask, the void? Does that mean you guys are breaking up? To which we reply, of course not!

We simply want to take our loving, safe, committed relationship and—in the spirit of radical honesty—invite in the chaotic meaninglessness of a vast and expanding universe.

It might sound complicated, but we’re being very traditional, if you think about it. Remember at prom in Catholic school, when the chaperones told us to leave room for the Holy Spirit? It’s like that, except with the void.

In every other way, we’re the very model of modern monogamy. From that first week freshman year at Miskatonic University, we’ve only ever been with each other. We have never known the taste of another’s morning breath, their particular brand of farts. Over the years we’ve evolved and grown together, like a tree eating a bicycle, or cancer.

The truth is, we’ve long thought something was missing in our relationship. Let’s call it a sensation of movement, of going somewhere, now that we’ve arrived.

Sure, the caption of our engagement announcement made vague and ominous reference to “ups and downs,” but as anyone in a long relationship can tell you, the worst part is this: the endless middle distance, the even keel of total inertia.

One minute you’re sailing, leaping joyfully together into the warm, inviting waters of the unknown, and the next, you’re stuck windless in the doldrums, bare to the merciless sun.

That’s the killer. That’s what makes us feel flattened and still as roadkill, long before death can do us part.

We just need to feel like we’re going somewhere. Turns out, the only destination that cannot disappoint is oblivion.

Last week, when we came back from our anniversary trail-running/backpacking/mushroom-foraging trip to the blasted heath, we looked at each other and said, you know what this is missing? The howling void!

What could be more honest than grappling with the absurd clamor of existence, our destiny as insignificant dust? And what could be more romantic than consenting together to be vessels of nothingness, to look that eldritch horror right in its all-seeing eye and say, see? We’re holding space for you.

Space that, like the universe, is constantly growing, metastasizing, pulling us ever further apart like a croissant in the soggy fingers of a toddler god.

If we could do it over again, we would have acknowledged the void in our wedding vows. But it was always there, whether we acknowledged it or not! Entropy—the gradual, inevitable decay of order into disorder, being into nothingness—was a guest at our wedding, sitting amongst you, our grandmas and cousins, coworkers and hurricane-drunk sorority sisters.

Admit it, you saw it in the depthless boredom in the eyes of our caterers and bartenders. You dodged it when poor uncle Jimp projectile vomited red wine all over the donut wall. It was there the whole time, complaining right along with you about the brevity of the cocktail hour.

It’s actually not that bad, the void. It’s risen up to meet us, taken us in. It’s dark and cold, but capacious, wide enough to hold everything in its nothingness. It’s come to feel like home. Brings new meaning to “open concept.”

We’ve even found companionship here. Something moves in the dark, unnameable and old. We saw it from across the widening gyre and we really liked its vibe. We’re far beneath its notice. Somehow that excites us more. We think it has tentacles and like, a million mouths or something. Hot!

We think of it fondly. We offer it our devotion, as if for a toxic crush: the kind that knows just when to send that late-night text, right when we had given up hope. We’re not religious, but we don’t have to believe in the void. The void believes in us.