“I’m not really here,” she whispers back.
We move around the apartment together. It looks empty and it smells moldy and unclean. I don’t know how long it’s been like this. Why hasn’t someone cleaned everything out? She picks up a picture of me, of Dana, and holds it out to me. Like the sculpture, it’s covered with dust. Taking the picture in my hands, I blow on it, again throwing up a big cloud into the air.“She saw me die,” I say. “She saw me jump over the side of a cliff.”
“But you’re not going to die,” she replies.
“I’m already dead,” I whisper.
I release her hand and walk away from her. In a moment, I’m on the cliff. I look back and see Dana sitting on the blanket. She has already told me not to get so close to the cliff, but I haven’t listened. She’s been over-protective since she had the vision that night in the car. Besides, the orbs are here and they want me to stay with them. They spin around me in little balls of light and heat. Dancing along the side of the cliff, I glance back at Dana again. Her face looks so tense that I relent a little and come back a few more feet from the edge. The orbs follow me gleefully. The wind lifts my skirt and my hair and suddenly I’m laughing and the whole world is filled with a brilliant gold light. The air smells delicious. Looking back at Dana again, I see that she has relaxed. “The orbs,” I shout, but she shakes her head. Over the wind, I think she says that there are no orbs. She looks worried again. She worries too much. Sometimes, I push up the corners of her mouth with my fingers to force a smile. Once, when she was frowning, I bit her nose and she laughed until she cried. My heart swells when she laughs. I love her. I am filled with such a radiant love for her that sometimes it’s unbearable. But my love isn’t just for her. My love has to spread and grow and fill all of the dark places in the world until there is no room left for any war or violence or hunger.
Dancing in the wind, I can feel the minds and emotions of everyone in the world. If I just reach out with my mind, I can pluck the feelings of anyone and everyone. I can be the joy of the mother holding her newborn child. I can be the fear of the man sitting on death row the night before his execution. I am all of these things. I realize all at once that I can feel them all and the weight of them is pressing me down. Still spinning, I cry out for relief, but all of the feelings of everyone in the world are slamming into me and I can’t escape them. I’m the horror of a police officer at the sight of a brutal murder and I’m the terror of a woman being raped and I’m the loneliness of the teenager cringing alone in his room. Whirling, I pull the feelings in faster and faster. The orbs start dancing around me, telling me to keep spinning, to keep twirling. Their light heats my face and I know they’re here to rescue me. Moving closer to the dancing orbs, I reach out for one but it skips away from me, playfully. The orbs are changing me. They’re turning me into light. And I suddenly know why I feel so awkward in this world. Now, I realize why I’ve never fit, why I could never find my place. I’ve always known I was different. I’ve always known I didn’t belong here. And I always knew that someday, my people would come to take me home.
One of the orbs, floating just on the other side of the edge of the cliff, bounces toward me. It circles my entire body, filling me with it’s brilliant light. I’m not in the light anymore. I am the light. The orb moves back out over the water and starts to change again. It’s becoming bigger and bigger. It’s a doorway – a doorway of light. When it’s bigger than I am, I turn back to look at Dana once more. She has half risen, and her face looks terrified.
“It isn’t scary,” I call happily over my shoulder before launching myself off the cliff and toward the door of light.
“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!” Sitting up in a complete panic, I launch myself off the couch and land several feet away, knocking over one of the porch chairs. Sinking to my knees, I press my forehead to the deck floor, shaking and crying. I can’t breathe. Trying to force air into my lungs, I breathe in hard, as hard as I can. Esmé is on her knees beside me in seconds. She rubs my back and talks to me in a soothing whisper until the weight lifts from my chest and I can breathe again.
“Es...” I start to say her name, but I can’t get it out before I’m sobbing.
She lies down on the deck, pulling me down next to her. We curl around each other, crying. In a moment, my mouth is on hers and I’m kissing her through my tears. She rolls over on top of me, still crying. Our tears are mingling together as we press together in something close to panic. My hands are under her clothes and before I am even aware of what I’m doing, I’m inside of her, and she’s reaching for me and we’re stroking and tasting each other in a frantic effort to wash away whatever the hell just happened.