Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student (Illusions 2)

Dying’s a child’s belief of location, of space and time. A friend’s real for us when they’re close, when we can see them, hear their voice. When they move to a different place, and silent, they’re gone, they’re dead.

Easy for him, he was with me when he wished, wondering why I didn’t see him, touch him. Then he realized that was my belief. It will change, one day.

For now he was not sad for the limitation of my understanding. Most mortals have that problem.

“I’ve been always with you,” he said. “You’ll understand, some day.”

“What was it like, Lucky, dying?”

“Different for you. You were so sad. You and Sabryna held me, and I lifted out of my body. No sorrow, no sadness. I got bigger and bigger… I was part of everything. I’m part of the air you breathe, with you always.”

“Oh, Lucky. I miss you.”

“You miss me when you can’t see me, but I’m right here! I’m here! I’m all you loved about me, I’m the spirit, the only Lucky you loved! I am not gone, not dead, I never was! You walk every day with Maya, with Zsa-Zsa, around the meadows and with me, too!”

“Do they see you, dear Lucky?”

“Sometimes Maya does. She barks at me, when Zsa-Zsa sees an empty room, and you don’t notice.”

“Why does she bark?”

“I may be partly invisible for her.”

I laughed.

He looked at me as he walked. “Time for me is different from what it is for you on Earth. We’re already together any time we wish, like now.”

“Not in Earth time. We call them memories.” I remembered. “You’d look at us, sometimes, I knew you were thinking about us all.”

“I love you still.”

“When you died, I found two animal communicators. One west coast, one east coast. Sent them your picture. Called them.”

“What did they say?”

“Thoughtful. Solemn.”

“Not solemn!” He looked down the path. “Was I solemn?”

“No. You smiled a lot, your last year. I don’t think, except in that picture, you were solemn.”

“I smiled when you tried to hide from me. Remember? I’d go ahead out of sight, you’d stop, hide behind a tree I couldn’t see you.”

“Yes. I closed my eyes. Didn’t breathe.”

“Of course I found you. You heard me next to you. You heard me breathing.”

“That was so funny, Lucky!” I laughed out loud, in the forest.

“I always knew where you were. Didn’t you know that?” Humans, he thought, not the smartest animals, but kind to dogs. “They were wrong about solemn. Did they say anything I said?”

“You talked about when you died. You left us, you said, and you got bigger and bigger.”

“I was the size of the universe. I knew I was everything. Did she say that?”

“They said that you were always with us. In every breath we breathed. You were part of us.”

“Close. You were part of me. It felt as though you were with me. I thought of you a lot.”