No One from No Where

There is no one here but I. The place on which I stand is an island in space. It is not very large, but there is room to walk around. One end looks into an endless sea of stars that have long died out, their light just now reaching me. At the other end, a beautiful nebula.

There is a bench on the nebula side that I often sit upon and gaze out into the colors before me. I breathe. I am not cold. I do not get bored. I do not sleep. Time does not exist here. It is no where, and I am no one.

I walk around on perhaps what is a little piece of a planet that is no more. Perhaps I created it as a place to be. Perhaps it was created for me.

There is a stone pathway that leads me through small trees, plants, and flowers. In the center of this island is a fountain. I take a moment to listen to the bubbling, gurgling water. There is a soft glow emanating from it that lights the area. I continue around the path, stopping briefly at the dark side.

Space before me is huge. It offers no depth perception, no horizon with which to orient myself. It is just huge.

I imagine, far out there where I cannot see, multiverses that continue on forever. I cannot see them from inside one.

I do not believe I am always here at this place, it is more of a refuge. While I am here, no one and nothing else exists for me. I am in silence, except for the fountain, in darkness exept for the starlight.

I meander back to the nebula, and sit upon the bench. It is a park bench, as hard as the space around us.

After a bit, I sense another. It is with this arrival that I become. The being is my mother. I sense her energy. I cry waterless tears, her arm goes around me. I am instantly comforted. We sit like that, gazing out into the nebula, speaking no words, as they are not necessary in this place.

I turn to look at her, and see that she is light now, similar to the nebula. I wonder if the nebula is her, and she sends a piece to me for just this. To sit by me, to comfort me, to silently communicate all that we have missed together.

She lets me know she is forever now, existing in the stars, in the glowy pinks and purples and blues and yellows. She is light. She is joy. She is space.

While I sit with her, there on the edge of an island in space, I am all those things also. Gratitude fills me. Love, as well.

She shows me space as I have never imagined it. She travels through it, visits other places, other beings of light. That is where she is when she is not here, she tells me. When she is not here it is a lonely place, the light in the fountain, out.

But she is here now. And we sit, still, exchanging thoughts, memories. She shows me the places she has been, I show her my dreams.

I say I miss you. The moment I say it I know I will not be here for much longer. She withdraws her arm from my shoulders. This is not a place for regret, for grief. It is a place of remembering, of communicating beautiful things. It is a place of being no one. A place of being light.

Now the light is fading from behind us, the fountain slows, the glow dims. My mom is slowly dissapating. I see an ethereal version of who she was move away from me, toward the nebula. All at once, she is absorbed, gone from my awareness.

When she is gone, I walk around the island, constantly, through the darkened foliage, the fountain no longer gleefully bubbling, and I wonder when she will return.

At those times, I leave to go somewhere. Where I go is separate from this place. Knowledge of it does not belong here. And when I arrive there, this place is forgotten for a time.

I rise from the bench. It is time to go home. To someplace. To be somebody.

One day, when I least expect it, I will be drawn back to that island in space, where I wish I could exist forever.