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" 'Always,' wook? Always is . . ."
I looked at her in mid-answer and froze, knowing.
Pictures from forgotten dreams, fragments from lifetimes lost in pasts and futures shone like color slides behind my eyes, -clik, -clik, -clik. . . .
The woman on the bed this moment, this person whom I could right now reach a hand to, touch her face, she's the
one killed with me in the massacre in colonial Pennsylvania, the same woman, she's the dear mortal to whom I've been spirit-guide a dozen times, and who's been guide for me; she's the willow-tree whose branches twined into mine; she the fox and I the vixen, fangs bared, snapping lashing outnumbered, saving the kits from wolves; she the gull who led me higher; she the living light on the road to Alexandria; she the silver lifeform of Bellatrix Five; the starship engineering officer I'd love in my distant future; the flower-deva from my distant past.
-clik and -clik and -clik; frame and frame and frame.
Why my weakness for, my joy in the singular turn of this one mind, in the singular curve of this face and breast, in the singular merry light in her eyes when she laughs?
Because those unique curves and sparkles, Richard, we carry them with us, lifetime to lifetime, they're our trademarks, stamped deep in what each of us believes, and without knowing, we remember them! when we meet again!
She looked at my face, alarmed. "What's wrong, Richard? What's wrong?"
"OK," I said, thunderstruck. "I'm all right, I'm fine. . . ."
I grabbed for paper, dashed words down. What a morning!
Time and again and again we had drawn ourselves to each other, because we had most to learn together, hard learnings and happy ones, too.
How is it that I know, why am I so utterly convinced that dying does not separate us from the one we love?
Because this one I love today . . . because she and I have died a million times before, and we're this second, minute, hour lifetogether again! We're no more separated by death
than we're separated by life! Deep within us, every one of us knows the laws, and one of the laws is this: we shall forever return to the arms of those we love, whether our parting be overnight or over-death.
"Just a minute, wook. Got to get this down. . . ."
The only thing that lasts, is love!
The words ripped out fast as ink could dash.
At the start of the universe . . . Before the Big Bang, was us!
Before all the Big Bangs in all of time, and after the echo of the last has faded, is us. We, dancers in every form, reflecting everywhere, we're the reason for space, the builders of time.
We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, adventuring for our pleasure, living mysteries for the fun of it, choosing disasters triumphs challenges impossible odds, testing ourselves over and again, learning love and love and LOVE!,
I lifted the pen, sat out of breath on the bed, looking at my wife.
"You're alive!" I said.
Her eyes sparkled. "We're alive together."
It was quiet for a while, till she spoke once more. "I had stopped looking for you," she said. "I was happy by myself in Los Angeles, with my garden and my music, my causes and my friends. I liked living alone. I thought I'd do that for the rest of my life."
"And I would have been happily strangled on my freedom," I said. "It wouldn't have been bad, it would have been the best that each of us knew. How could we miss what we never had?"
"But we did miss it, Richie! Once in a while, when you
were alone, whether or not there were people around, did you ever feel so sad you could cry, as if you were the only one of your kind in the world?" She reached to touch my face. '
"Did you ever feel," she said, "that you were missing someone you had never met?"
forty-six
