#bloomshore

[turtlequeen]

but it was only ever us.

[teequee]

once upon a time, I died.

I remembered feeling distantly regretful just prior, as if I hadn't been able to say goodbye to someone. But that faded; and then I drifted....drifted for a while.

Easily and slowly like a mote of dust carried by the currents of time. There wasn't a word or a thought. Just a submerged silence...

You woke me with your song.

There were flowers. Thousands, everywhere. The way there always seem to be so many flowers, in places and around people who are meant to be beautiful. Or is it the flowers that make them so?

Anyway - you were there, small among so many flowers.

You stopped humming.

Maybe neither of us had seen anyone in a long while, because neither of us said anything for some time.

And then, after a while, you said: "....hi."

"Hi," I said.

I found that I could move again. I had a mouth (how else could I have spoken); eyes (how else could I have seen the flowers, or you); arms and legs.... I climbed out.

You watched me, with an uncertain but curious sort of smile. "Were you sleeping?"

"I guess so." Death was a kind of slumber, wasn't it?

-

There was no one else here.

It was just us, and flowers. As far as the eye could see, like an ocean all its own. In between the green stems and leaves, there were openings of glimmering water, aquamarine. I wondered how deep that water went. Looking behind me, I realized I had been floating on water. Was it a sea? Perhaps this was a shore.

"How long have you been here?" It seemed only natural to ask in this sort of situation.

You shrugged. "I'm not sure. It feels like a while. But also not that long."

A nonsensical answer, but it seemed to make sense, for some reason. Maybe because I felt the same way. There was no day or night here. Light and space were constant.

And yet...things happened.

-

You invited me to your home. You explained it was a place you had discovered when you had first arrived, as if it had always been here. You weren't sure who built it, but it had everything you needed: a fireplace, a stove, a kitchen, a garden, a bath, a place to hang wet things to dry, a bed.

There was even an extra room for me, as if it had been waiting for me all along.

"Hope you aren't picky - there are only white things to wear here." In your hand was a white shirt. I blinked, realizing that you were wearing a white dress. I had always thought of white as an impractical color to wear, but nothing seemed dirty here.

"Thank you."

Maybe I would stay clean, too.

"Do you want to eat?"

Was I hungry?

"Sure." I decided I was.

You led me to the table to sit. I watched you cook. You weren't very good at it. Mostly you chopped some things and put them into a pot with boiling water.

"Please don't complain," you said, setting the bowl of boiled stuff down in front of me. "Cooking isn't my thing."

"Okay," I said with a small smile.

It wasn't that bad.

-

Like I said, there was no time here. But things happened.

You would go to bed, and so would I. We would wake up. Sometimes you earlier than me; sometimes me before you. We would talk about things. It was strange how we managed to find things to talk about, in a place that had nothing but us and flowers. We would eat. Usually boiled things. Sometimes I cooked too.

You liked to take walks, and I would walk with you. I discovered there were some other things here besides flowers. Some places a little further had trees. Fields. A lake. A stream. A meadow.

But it was only ever us.

-

"I think something's changed," you said. "Ever since you came."

We were walking, in a place with trees and flowers. "I feel like...."

You looked perplexed, and almost frustrated, because you couldn't find the words. "...something has changed. Is going to change."

You said it with such definitiveness that it made me a little uneasy.

I must have been wearing a strange expression because you smiled then, leaning up against a tree. "It's not a bad thing. I'm not blaming you. It's just going to be different."

I looked out at all the flowers. They looked the same as they had when I had first come here; but somehow different.

"Yeah." I had to agree, even if I didn't want to.

-

You hugged me. It was the first time you had.

"I think I'm going to be leaving soon."

You let go, and started to walk away.

I reached out to touch your hand. "Do you have to?"

You smiled. "Do you want to come with me?"

"Kind of."

You laughed. "Then come."

-