Everyone you know is dead

Look around you. Everyone you know is dead. They may have died two days ago or thirty years from now, but once you rise above that giant superhighway called time, it makes no difference anymore. At some point they do exactly the same thing you are doing at this moment. They open the car door and get out. After a while, they discover that they don't have to walk on the highway anymore. They don't have to try to keep up with the cars that drive right through them. That's when the highway begins to fade. The people in the cars call this death, but once you're outside, you know that this is when true life begins.

I open my eyes. I am leaning over the dead body of a girl. She is about 24 or 25. Black jeans. Combat boots. Dark hair. This is Reenie. I know her by that name and I know her face, although our paths have never crossed on that great superhighway. I feel an instant connection to her. I want to reach out, to talk to her and feel her, but I realize that the body, although familiar, does not need my affection. _Where are you?_ Then I see her. She is beside me and a part of me. Her energy is a densely wound ball of silvery yarn and smoky impressions emanate from it. Reenie reading at eight. Reenie walking the streets of her city. Reenie as the middle aged eccentric she will never become. It's like there are a million possible Reenies superimposed on each other. Can she really be all of them? We always see death as an ending, but what if the very first thing you knew about somebody was that they are dead. What if that death becomes the seed from which all probable lives emanate.

I close my eyes. I'm on the beach with my family. They're on the other side of the beach, though. I'm around seven. There is something in the waters. A mermaid. She is different from storybook mermaids. More fish than human, with scales all over her body and greenish skin. She moves very fast, too fast for anything of this world. It is only a glimpse. Only a moment and she is gone. I'm not sure whether I really saw her or not. Part of mind says no. The other part still holds a very clear impression of the memory. I'm not sure which to trust.

I open my eyes. Reenie's body lies on the tarmac, as the sun rises. Her death, a few hours earlier, remains undiscovered. A few meters away, another Reenie shivers because she just saw an angel, or at least a puzzling clue to the passing of one. I suck the blood from my fingers, where a window's broken glass cut them. I did something, but I'm not sure what. Now there are two Reenies. One Reenie's body melts into the tarmac, smudging the surface with a brief smear of color, before it is completely gone. Her essence watches with me. She and I have stranger paths to thread. The other Reenie is oblivious to us. For now. She will continue a little further down the superhighway. I am still awed that I was able to reach into her world and change things. We will meet again, but not soon. The new Reenie will remember this night, though and so will I. A world died with the dawn, but no one slumbering in the silent houses all around is even aware of this.

I close my eyes... To continue, click here