When the Sky Fell on Splendor

by Emily Henry

Maybe he flew across the sky in a fiery blue streak, hearing the sound of his own name spoken—calling him—by everyone who loved him. Maybe he landed in a still, dark pool and felt joy bubble through his non-body, or maybe sometimes he crashed into the papery, soon-to-be fall leaves a hundred yards behind the house we’d once run around in swimming suits, darting through the trail of sprinklers, the yard where we’d played hide-and-seek from the minute we got off the bus to the moment the porch lights flicked three times into the blue night, calling us home for dinner. Maybe there were bits of him perched on eaves and phone lines watching the Splendor sunset turn the fluffy clouds the color of a Dreamsicle, and even if those bits flew into freshly Windexed glass panes or straight into the ground, then he would smell the wet dirt, feel it in his non-fingers, and taste it in his non-mouth. Maybe sometimes Mark came home.