Inhale

I blink. She blinks. I take in a deep breath filling my lungs with radiation and dust and the smell of the crushed lavender in her hair. I want to say the right words. To say something that would convey the aching I feel underneath my ribs. The kind of feeling that both expands and restricts the lung's capacity for air in some contradictory trick of nature. I try to conjure the words - moving my face in patterns that feel familiar - but I haven’t spoken in what feels like years. Although I would still talk to myself for a while after - babble on about the charred trees and trickling streams. Trying to keep alive the possibility that I might need them again. That by putting words to what was happening, it would somehow make it feel more grounded to reality. Any reality. But those real words merged with nonsense syllables until I wasn’t always sure where one ended and the other began. The feeling of those words - of the words that were once used in any form of clear communication - becoming just as much a distant memory as old red boots and blue polka dots and warm caramel. So instead I just…stare. And blink. 

And then she’s running. Leaping. Flying. And as if tethered to her gaze, which now only occasionally looks back in my direction, I am lurched forward following her. My heavy legs seeming inept in their pursuit of her long strides. I trudge on behind her, well aware that I should stop. That I am getting further and further from the part of the woods I only recently became familiar with. I can feel the different branches scraping at my face, but I fear if I take my eyes off of her for a moment she will disappear. That she will evaporate back into the lifeless trees that she just as quickly materialized from. For although she seems human, there is an aura about her that seems to contradict everything that I once knew. The way she holds herself, and moves, and breathes. It’s all different. 

I wonder if I’ve become different. 

If somehow the water from the streams has changed the nature of my DNA. Changed who I am on a fundamental level - vibrating out into every organ and white blood cell and Ribosome. If my cell walls have somehow become more permeable. And that her cells are somehow reaching out across the chasm of space between her hand and mine as she oh so briefly pauses for me to catch up. That both of our cells can interact with one another from the thought of it alone. 

I don’t know. 

But it feels true.

Which maybe in our case makes it true. 

She stops in a small clearing. My pace begins to slow as I approach as if the space somehow demands it. And in the middle of it all, she stands with a soft command that makes it hard to tell where the edges of her begin and end. I take a step closer. I am not naive enough to think we are the last of humanity, but at this moment it certainly feels as if we are. And if I only look out of the corner of my eye, I would almost think I saw the beginnings of new grass trying to find its way to the surface through the many layers of ash and barely habitable soil. And stranger still if I close my eyes I know with certainty I would feel it. We stand in the perfect intersection between four fallen trees, and although we are out in the open, the space feels incredibly safe. And somehow known. Known so deeply by her that it enters into my unconscious mind. The one that knows that cliffs can kill and warmth is safety.    

Her lips move and I pretend to hear words. All the things I wished to say earlier, she says perfectly without making a sound. I respond with a smile. Which I guess will have to do for now. For I don’t know what would be summoned if I did try to speak. And yet I have a strange urge to tell her a secret - of which I have both many and none. So I start whispering my collision of words and nonsense syllables to convey the last few months. The last years. The last lifetimes. I know she will not understand any of it. That she will get tired and leave and I will be left all alone. Again. Or maybe I always was. But I can’t stop talking. I can’t stop conveying. Or whatever it is I am doing. And finally when I am out of air and my unused voice grows tired I pause and look at her. And she’s crying. 

I touch my cheek and am surprised to find that I am crying. And then laughing and crying. And then laughing and crying and shaking and my body doesn’t know how to process these feelings that have been hidden away for so long. Buried to keep them protected from the world that had no place for them. And this continues in a seamlessly timeless loop where the cycle crashes and dances and floats above us both.

Until she reaches out to take my hand. Closing the distance our cells have to reach to try to be near each other. To try to be each other. Her hand is cold. Or maybe my hand is warm. Either way, something is not right. She smiles, but my lips can’t seem to return the sentiment. 

She begins to whisper again. A singing whisper. A hushed song. But I’m not sure if it is her singing or my cells resonating with hers. Not sure if it is the final song of dissolving DNA. But it is beautiful. And I let the delicate melody take the weight of my hand. The weight of my arm. My shoulders. Radiating until my whole body feels weightless. And warm. I feel so warm that I welcome her cold hand. 

And then her melody turns to a familiar set of sounds:

“Home”

And the word reestablishes some of the weight in my chest. 

“Home” I try to echo the reminiscent word. But it feels incomplete coming from my mouth. 

But as the word fades back into distant melody so to do the ties I had to the earth.