It’s darker than he ever imagined, like a great plug pulled on the world, with nothing but the sound of his own breath beating slow. Darker than nights he dreamed of oceans coating his lungs, filling his heart, left motionless in his own body, fallen back into a time before other people, only two sets of hands clasping each other. A time when she was looking at him and he was looking at her and everything was green and hope and thrilling new laughter at each discovery. Time spent naming all they found, never disagreeing on a syllable, as animals growled their own, brought out like fresh flavors on their tongues. The trees are heavy with food, shade, a million things blending with their bones.
But one day, there is a crack in the world and she is looking at him and he is looking at her and there is a wrinkle along her brow, a story of smooth alien skin wrapping her arm, murmuring into her ear, revealing secrets, revealing all, breaking her heart open wide, blood running out, terrible thoughts running in. She pulls him in close, and when she touches his temples with her fingertips, he knows it’s true. Suddenly, as if by magic, nothing is what they want anymore. There are dark new layers, meanings they don’t expect, scales falling from their eyes, blinking in the sunlight at what really exists.
And then God came. And everything was mud and shame and desperate claws at forgiveness, denials of promises made in shouts and betrayed in whispers. You were made of stars, God said, stellar matter dispersed. I created a whole universe inside you and what have you done?
He looks down at his hands, her hands, their hands snaked together. Watches them decay until photons, neutrinos, positrons are the whole world drifting rootless in a space larger than the mind can imagine. They have become all pain ever felt, all joy ever had, gone, done, meaningless, silent and cold.
But not yet, God says. It will be years and years, trillions and trillions. You’ll wait until forever before you come back the way you started, before you’re anything I wanted you to be.
He draws a sudden, deep forceful breath as if his head has been pulled from under water. Coughing himself out of a dream more real than real life, he remembers there were gardens.