a conversation

Dreamlike. As the years swept her along, Eleanor would be asked a thousand times what it was like. This would be the only answer she could ever give. It was never adequate.

She saw behind things, through them, saw the ripple of sourceless light beneath wheels of color, remembered National Geographic documentaries she had seen of translucent glaciers and the dance of water within. Every movement she made seemed amplified, focused so extremely that even the twitch of a fingertip contained the possibility of changing the world, and not only this one, but somehow the one she had exited -- when? a few minutes ago? a decade ago? She understood the logic of the butterfly and the typhoon, and let her muscles slacken, concerned on some level for the damage she might do and never know of.

And then the voice spoke.

Eleanor heard nothing, but every color shimmered, and the line her body traced through space trembled. She felt the voice, embodied it.

(hello)

It seemed a very long time before she could answer. What do you say to a voice without a body, without a face, without a voice, when it says hello to you?

Eleanor wondered if maybe in her fall she had passed someone else without noticing, and thought that perhaps saying hello in response wouldn't make much sense -- after all, if she had passed the speaker, then he must be somewhere behind her, somewhere in the vapor trail of her plummeting body, lost to words.

Days seemed to pass before she answered. She watched as the string of color palettes slowed and contracted, then stretched and snap-released again, and in the sudden slack she could see colors she had never seen before, and somehow knew she would never see again. She thought she saw a butterfly, but only briefly.

This is what she said to the owner of the voice: Did you see that? Words spoken in a vacuum.

The reply was slow, but when it arrived, it felt right on time.

(i did)

Eleanor flinched at the nearness of the voice -- she could feel warm breath on the back of her neck, she thought, but when she rolled her body over in mid-fall, nobody was there -- and then wondered why. Was she scared? She didn't think so. She thought that if she was going to be scared, then she would have gotten a head-start when she realized that her world had fallen away from her.

Suddenly she had a thousand questions for the voice. Abruptly she said, I've never kissed a boy.

(this is what concerns you of death)

I don't think I'm dead, Eleanor said.

(no)

If I were dead, Eleanor answered, I don't think I'd be here.

(where would you be)

Tuscany, she answered.

(tuscany is heaven to you)

My grandmother is buried there. My mother told me that she wanted to be buried there when she died. I want to, too.

She had another question, and asked it without invitation. Does this mean that I will go to heaven when I die?

(why do you ask)

I said I thought I would be in Tuscany if I were dead. You asked if I thought of Tuscany as heaven. Which means you must know that when I die I will go to heaven. Proud of her logic, aware that she had somehow explained it poorly, but also certain that it didn't matter. She was understood.

(why do you think I have this answer)

Because you haven't asked me why I haven't asked you who you are.

(why)

Because, Eleanor said, you know I already know who you are.

There was a long silence, and Eleanor noticed as it played out that she could control the speed of her fall by tracing her fingertips against the colors that flashed by. She slowed her descent, fingers trailing knuckle-deep in the palettes like paint. Somehow she knew that the voice's owner was amused by watching her.

(who am i)

Eleanor stopped, weightless for the first time, and said, You're God.

And knew then that it was over, found herself being pulled down, fast, her fingers sliding through the colors like knives; she tried to stop herself again, and only fell faster. She didn't want to leave the voice behind just yet, knew that if she kept falling like this, she might never hear it again. For the first time since she found herself in this gap, Eleanor was terrified. And there it was: the brush of lips on her forehead, there but not there at all, and then she came to a startling stop.

Eleanor opened her eyes slowly, the thin membranes of her eyelids shot through with painful white light, saw that she was alone in a room that buzzed with fluorescent light and machines on wheels, and closed them again, and listened ferociously for the voice that was no longer there.