Fonda

They sit naked in the summer grass, passing a joint, feeling relaxed. Life is good.

"Any epiphanies?" he asks her. He looks at her with love.

She turns to him, eyes unreadable. "I know," she says, "what it's like to be dead."

He laughs a little, nervously. He's sure she's telling the truth, or at least that she thinks it's the truth. He wonders if the drugs they have been taking for the past few weeks have affected her badly. "Trippy."

"No, really. If you ask me, I can't describe it, though. Not in English. I don't think human languages have words to describe deadness." Her eyes are black and burning, almost feverish.

He's starting to feel dizzy. "Where'd you get that, hon? Are you okay?"

"It's weird."

He extinguishes the joint and moves closer to her, caresses her shoulders. They're silent for a little while. He hopes she has forgotten it.

Then, "You don't understand what I told you."

"Well," he says and stops to think. "When I was a kid, though. Everything was so good. Nowadays when I remember it... I feel sort of dead."

"That's not what being dead is really like," she insists.

He starts to feel uncomfortable. She makes him feel so naive. It surfaces in his mind that death is a vast world, much larger than life. Presumably she has been there, and he knows that he hasn't.

He sits up. "I'm ready to go."

She looks at him impassively. "Think about it," she says. "I'm staying here."

He pulls on his clothes, gives her a glance. Her eyes are shut, her body still. He has to fight off a sense of panic, despite the obvious movement of her chest. "Goodbye," he whispers. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She doesn't reply, but he knows she's heard him.

He never really thinks of her the same way after that.