Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #20 November 2015 | Page 84

time now. She is gone before I can smile in response. The paramedics are shoving the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. Polly looks at me over her bare shoulder. The sun shines through her. I wonder if I am as transparent as she is. I am outside on Polly’s lawn now. Her neighbors are standing on their porches, gawking. The sun is bright, and I wish I had skin to feel it on. Still. I am dead, but I am not useless. I saved Polly. I am not only about madness and grief and regret. I can touch things. I can feel something besides sadness. “I don’t want to be dead,” she says. “I just want someone to understand.” “I understand. You are lonely. I know lonely.” I pause. “I miss being loved. She might not understand you, but she sure loves you.” Polly nods. She watches her mother get into the back of the ambulance, still sobbing. “I’m going with them,” she says. “I’m going to be alive.” The sun shines through that early fall tree, golden. I think, I could fit into that light if I tried. Even as I think it I know what is happening to me. The light grows, grows, fills me up like water all the way to the top of a tall glass. I am warm, and I remember what it feels like to be loved. 84