I make no sound.
Color blotches in her cheeks. I feel her little heart beating, her pulse racing. Heat presses against her eyes, my eyes; humidity takes her hands, my hands; fear climbs up her throat, my throat.
Rosa, she says, her chest heaving.
Here.
I have no tongue.
Rosa?She turns around.
Here. I have no face.
Rosa, she screams.
Here. I have no head. I’m here. I have no hands.
ROSA—
I’m here. I have no heart.
Clara is crying now, I’m crying, her body shaking, I’mshaking, tears stream down her face my face, her eyes wild with fear my fear. She’s rooted to the ground, her dirty hands splayed at her sides—
Rosa,she screams again,where are you?
HERE
The word is wrenched from somewhere inside of me, torn free of bone and sinew, the tissue of soul. I’m gasping for breath I don’t need, reaching with my teeth for a mouth; searching my eyes for sight; listening to my ears for a sound—
In here, I look around.
Gone is the field, the sun, the flowers. I am encased in black. I hear the slow beat of my heart in this darkness. My pulse is occasional; an ellipsis.
Threads of sensation tighten around the unknown shape of me, flashes of pain and searing heat, then breath; breath exhales inside me like smoke blown into my mouth, then heart; heart hammers into pain that suffocates, then resonance. Tones focus into pattern, arrange into letters, sharpen into words—
One word—
Rosa?
I stiffen.
Rosa, is that you?
I touch my mind with my mind, unfathomable, like water touching water. I make my voice as if with my hands, gathering sound like wind.
Clara?I say.
Rosa, she says desperately. The force of her grief nearly blots me out. I nearly go away. Where?
Rosa, she says again.Are you dead?
Am I dead?
I gather up my mind, reading its texture with fingers I don’t have. I don’t know where I am, what I am.
I don’t know, I say. Then, terror:Are you?
Silence.
