"We were out of our bodies!"
"Oh, Richie, were we? I don't remember . . ."
"You don't? What's the last thing you can think of before now?"
She brushed golden hair from her eyes, and smiled dreamily. "I was flying. Pretty dream. Flying over fields . . ."
"Then it's true! We remember out-of-body nights as flying dreams!"
"How do you know I was out of body?"
"Because I saw you!"
That woke her up. I told her everything that had happened, everything I had seen.
"But 'seen' is not the word for out-of-body sight, wook. It isn't seeing as much as it is knowing, knowing in detail that's clearer than sight." I switched off the light. "The room's this black, and I could see everything. The stereo, the shelves, the bed, you and me. . . ." In the dark it was impressive, to talk about seeing.
She touched her light, sat up in bed, frowned. "I don't remember!"
"You came by rne like a rose-and-daisy UFO; stopped in the air and sort of melted into your body. Then you moved and touched me and bang! I was wide awake. If you hadn't touched me that moment, I wouldn't have remembered."
It was another month before it happened again, and then it happened nearly in reverse. She waited till morning to tell me.
"Same as yours, wook! I felt like a cloud in the sky, light as air. And happy! I turned around, looked back at the bed, and there we were asleep and Amber, there was dear little Amber curled up on my shoulder, the way she used to sleep! I said, 'AMBER!' and she opened her eyes and looked at me as though she had never left. Then she stood and started to walk toward me and that's the end of it, I woke up in bed."
"Did you feel like you had to stay in the room?"
"No, no! I could go anywhere hi the universe, anywhere I wanted to, see anyone. It's like I had a magic body. . . ."
Powerhouse quiet crackled in the room.
"We did it!" she said, excited as I had been. "We're doing it!"
"Another month," I said, "maybe we can do it again!"
It happened the next night.
This time I was sitting in the air when I woke over the bed, and what caught my attention was a radiant form afloat, flawless sparkling silver and gold barely two feet away, exquisite living love.
Oh, my! I thought. The Leslie I've been seeing with my eyes isn't the tiniest part of who she is! She's body
within body, life within
life; unfolding, unfolding, unfolding . . . will I ever know all of her?
No words required, I knew whatever she wanted me to know.
-You were sleeping, and I was here and I coaxed you out, Richie please come out . . . and you did-
--Hi, sweetie, hi, hi!
I reached to her, and when the light from the two of us touched, there was the feeling we get when we hold hands, yet many times closer, gentle rejoicement.
-Up-I thought to her.-Slowly. Let's try going up.-
Like two warm balloons, we lifted together through the ceiling as if it were cool air.
The roof of the house sank beneath us, rough wooden shingles covered in fallen pine needles, brick chimney, television antenna pointed toward civilization. Down on the decks, flowers asleep in planters.