STAYING FOR A WHILE

2406 CE

The light came from all around her, and she couldn’t identify its color or its source; it bathed her, and she felt warm and comfortable. She didn’t feel her body at all – no contours, no signals telling her where her arms were or which way her neck was turned. She wanted to look around. Everything was dim in the light except for a flurry of movement near her. Five people in space garb suddenly materialized below, and stood for a second, their arms flailing like bee’s wings, their helmets vibrating like tuning forks. They vanished. All she could see now was a figure lying flat and naked on a slab of metal. That’s me, sleeping. It must be down at 2K, fourth stage. Time seems compressed.

She gazed on her body. Its imperfections – the scars, the moles, the little crookednesses that everyone sees in the mirror – were gone. Am I looking at my body, or my spirit? The thought idled through her like mist, and she didn’t try to answer it.

The suited figures returned. One made hyperspeed notes on a data pad. All but one disappeared. The remaining figure placed a gloved hand to its faceplate, then for the blink of an eye touched two fingers to the lips of the sleeping Elena figure. That must be Chen. He’s always liked me.

A buzzing sound attracted Elena‘s attention. She couldn’t locate a source. The buzz turned ragged, stopped, restarted, and turned to a smooth hum, varying to make a kind of atonal song. Curious, she waited. Maybe there’s some periodic machine cycling near the sleep room. I’ll have to ask later.

Something began to press on her, not in any identifiable place, but in a kind of squeeze that made her feel as if she were being wrapped tightly all over. The warmth grew into a pleasant heat, like a steam bath. She expected at first that she would sweat, but then remembered she was not in her body. The light around her grew and grew, blooming from color to color and climaxing in a blaze of white that stayed, adding to the heat and filling her with what seemed an electric charge. She wanted to curl around that light, make it last, keep it for herself.

A squawk, like a chirp from a bird, then a jumbled burst of high sound, and finally a voice that said, “You are staying.”

The words were not really words; they formed as if Elena saw a facial expression that she understood without further effort, the way a small child reads its mother’s tender look.

“Yes,” she replied, not knowing where her own voice came from. “Yes, I am staying for a while.” She wanted to say these words more than anything else in the world. Even her own words felt not like words but like a heartfelt nod and smile.

“What are you?”

“A human. My name is Elena. What are you?”

A great gusty feeling bounced Elena as she lay in her warmth, gusty and sexy and joyful, and she felt stars in birth and life seeding entire galactic reaches, everything dancing in intricate and unbearable harmony. The power of it blew against her, and it was as if her spirit eroded into flyaway sparks of light. Was this death? Such ecstasy! But she had to… had to…

“Stop!” she screamed in terror. “I’m coming apart!”

“Yes.” The feeling ceased. “I am sorry. My name is too hard for you. Your names can’t carry much. Call me Ben.”

Now Elena, relieved, laughed inside. “Not God?”

The being joined her, laughing. “No.”

“An angel, maybe? Gabriel?”

“No, no, no. We are too slow. It’s time to say goodbye, for now. I will meet you next time.”

“Wait!” But the voice was gone, and the feeling, and the embrace of warmth. Desolation came over Elena in a vast wave, and she lost awareness again.