Negative Space

by B.R. Yeager

I see her. Decades from now, in a familiar white room, where I had lain and she had waited beside me. The machines breathe for her. I see myself in her body. She is the me that was allowed to age, the me that wasn’t already trapped out here. But I’ve given up on there being a story other than what they say about me now. I will lie down beside her, watching her dreams, looking for my own, until her body falls away. She can’t see me as her body peels away, leaving only a sheet of curling strings. I’ll never see her again but I’ll always remember what she meant to me. I’m here now. People whisper my name in their stories. They carry candles to where I buried a woman I may have loved, where they buried a boy I may have loved. They plant the candles in the dirt and hum and whisper my name. I lay my strings over the flames, watching the light flicker to nothing, and sometimes I whisper back.