Death Valley

by Melissa Broder

“Help me not be empty,” I say to god in the Best Western parking lot.

It’s a very lonely feeling when the doctors can’t do anything. You’re calling out for help in viscid darkness, and all you get back is an echo.

But you could be sleeping. Why not sleep instead? My answer to the voice is, I am afraid that I will become nothing.

Outside the window, the darkness is thick with stars and possible god.