She was different from everybody else.

I could tell this right away. She moved like a dancer making graceful, no, purposeful steps. Each leap and dip more important than the next. Her words were never heard, they were felt. Like bouncing syllables in your stomach. Like broken consonants in your hands. Her eyes sparkled in unknown light and, if she happened to look down at you, the light would fall onto your head.

I often found myself leaning below her, just to feel her rays.

She was followed by everyone, but no one ever spoke to her. I knew why. Our words were to dry and filled with cracks. They were not worthy enough to be spoken to her.

How badly I wanted to speak to her.

I would often see her looking over the crowds of followers. Her eyes never met the one she was looking for, but the opportunity to be slightly gazed upon was tremendously desirable.

My opportunity came much later and in a different form.

For now I was young and she was irresistible. I was her most devout follower, a trait that would trail me to beyond grave. I remember the first time she seemed looked at me directly. She was sitting alone in a room, a rarity. I made a small noise and she looked up, her eyes shining.

I wanted to run, I really did.

She smiled at me and I felt my self waver and nearly fall. She looked as if to speak, and if she had I most likely would have fainted, but stopped. Instead she stood up and walked slowly towards me. She looked at me very shyly and I felt my knees quake and I leaned against the wall behind me.

She was crying.

It was strange that I only noticed that detail when she was mere breaths away from me. In one sudden, and terrifying, moment she flung her arms around me and hugged me in a breathless embrace. It took me a couple seconds before my world went dark and unconsciousness took me.

All I felt was her choking arms and gasping tears.

She disappeared after that. No one knew where she went, she was simply gone. Her followers mingled around, lost as to what to do and think. They eventually left. I could never leave. Her tears had made stains on my cheeks and I couldn’t give her up so easily as them.

How many hours did I wasting trying to wipe those tears away?

Years passed at the slowest rate conceivable. Everyone thought I had gone mad. I could not be comforted. I could not settle down. I was as lost as she was. A new one came along. A new being with words of thick everlasting sweetness and eyes of glistening light.

I took no comfort in her. No matter how much I wanted to.

I would often find myself leaning against walls, willing her arms to come around me. Willing her tears to stain every part of my soul. I knew I had to leave, for my sake and others around me. I had to leave my home and everyone there.

Just to find someone whose name I never knew.

Her name? I don’t think anyone knew what her name was. Nor do I think they will ever learn the name of the new intruder. How badly I wished to know her name. I could hear it whispering in my dreams, a name to begin and end all other names. A name that encompassed my own name and everything that I was.

It was my mantra, in a sense.

So I set out into the unknown. I had no idea where to go, so I simple just went. Often, when I would lie down to sleep, I would imagine her next to me. It was always the same image no matter how many times I envisioned it

(It went like this) :

A warm blanket would cover us and I would lie on my side, so better to gaze at her. She would be on her back, her hair fanned out in a divine halo. Her head would be slightly tilted, so tired that it couldn’t even lie properly.

I would not speak to her. So she would talk to me. It was always riddles, but she would always give me the answer and never the question. “What is the riddle? What are the words? The answer is me. The answer is you. The answer is nothing at all,”

It was always the same. And it would drive me crazy until I would lift up my hand, in a moment of courage, and put it over her mouth. Some of the words would still slip between my fingers. “Me… you… nothing at all,” Tears would leak from her eyes and the old stains on my cheeks would burn in response.

Or perhaps I was merely crying as well? She; because she could no longer speak. And me; because I could never speak in the first place.

It was very odd and the meaning eluded me, even in death.

I could say that I found her again, but the meaning would be meaningless. Or perhaps just redundant. It took many years and though the image never changed, I did. Gone was my dry cracking voice, it was replaced by a small whispery voice. Few could still hear it. My eyes, so observant and lively before, now were always lowered and looked only at the ground.

And also gone was my body, for it had died.

Do not pity me. It was no tragic death; I only died of too many years. That is how long it took me to find her again. It took longer than life, my life. Did I waste my life? Maybe. Was it worth it in the end?

To me, it had worth the entire time.

With no body I traveled much faster and to places my body could not go to. And I found her. I found her. She had not aged, just as I thought. She was lying down in a bed and I approached her. Her eyes were open and I gazed openly at them. It was terrifying.

Mostly because they weren’t looking at me. Or anything for that matter.

Clouds had covered her eyes and the light was blocked out. I wondered how the clouds could seep into such a small space. They turned in her eyes, making vicious circles. I reached out, my finger tips hovering over the stormy substances. She moved before I could.

“Is it you?”

Her voice was dead, flat. I wanted to say ‘Yes, yes, it is you. But what is the question? What is the riddle?’. Such notions were quickly suppressed and my already soft voice was blotted out of existence. How sad was that? I had finally found her and my already forgotten, burning question was lost.

How sad was that?

A boy came into the room. A servant of some sort, I guessed. He held out a bowl of water to me, but I could never take it. “I have never seen someone like you come here before,” His voice was wet, weighed down in the water he held, “but of course, I have never seen anyone here at all,”

“What is wrong with her eyes?”

It was my voice that spoke and it surprised me. I felt like I had never heard it before. It came out small and slithery, like a snake. Then lifted slightly into a feather that floated aimlessly to the ground. I reached out a hand to grasp my voice, but the servant was too quick.

His hand held my voice, forcing words from me.

I told him everything. My memories, my fears, my desires, and most of all, the question burning in my throat. By the time I was done my throat felt numb with shock and my nose was filled with writhing feathers.

I remember coughing and wheezing, but I had no real nose to clear.

The servant released the feather in his hand and turned towards her. He laid one finger on her forehead and drew a careful circle with the water. “She is blind, simply because she couldn’t see what she needed to see,” He looked at me, his eyes lowered, “She needed to see the one who could see her,”

Couldn’t everybody see her? Didn’t she have countless followers?

Like myself?

I went to her and knelt beside her. I kept my hands folded against me, for fear they would reach out and try to brush away the trapped clouds. My ears ached for her sweet voice. My skin yearned for her gentle light. Even my cheeks burned for more tear stains.

In my moment of desperation I did something I never dreamed I would do.

I spoke to her.

I carefully felt the serpentine words form in my mouth and I dragged them out as feathers. I place each soft word on top of her. Feathers on her eyes, mouth, and hair. My lifeless fingers never touching her skin.

I always wondered what I had said. Had I asked the correct riddles?

She turned towards me, feathers falling on her pillow, and she lifted one hand to my face and touched my battered cheeks. It was different now, since I had no body, but the essence never left me. Her fingers were cold, but I didn’t move.

I truly didn’t mind at all.

She spoke then, words flat and heavy. I was too weak to even pick them up. “I remember you. I laid my tears upon you. And now, so many years later, I feel them again. But never before have I seen you,” I didn’t know what she meant at first, but the realization came over me in a cold wind.

She never saw me. Did I ever truly see her?

The servant boy laughed, but it was strange. It was neither happy nor spiteful. It held neither mockery nor any wistfulness. It just hung in the air and circled around our heads in bitter defeat. The boy came closer to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Is it sadder that you have never seen her? Or that, even now, you still don’t?

The boy’s voice broke then and I had to read his words off of the floor. He said, “Every one she met never saw her for who she was. All they saw was a perfect being with eyes made of sunlight. They never spoke to her even though she badly wanted to converse. They may have looked at her, but never for the soul within. So then she never looked at them,”

How lonely her world was. And how sad that no one noticed.

The servant boy removed his hand from my shoulder and placed it on her face. His broken words now fell on the beautiful visage, “Can you see the wrinkles? The blemishes of old age? Can you see her labored breathing? How she can hardly hold on to life? Your eyes are so stained with her perfection that they can never see her true self,”

And my cheeks were stained with her tears.

I then knew who the servant boy was. I guess I knew all along, it just had to slowly seep into my skin. The boy was a Death Angel. He helped the weak and needy into the long slumber. It was the reason why he could see me, even without a body.

It was the reason why he was next to her.

The time was coming fast now and what little breath I had was grasped from my mouth. My chance was coming; my opportunity was approaching me with silent careful steps. I stood up to the Death Angel and spoke. My voice no longer slithery feathers, but strong hands. Holding on to my heart and lifting me up.

“Let me stay with her,”

When her soul was free of her body, all I wanted was to be with her. To see her. Perhaps I would find out more about her. Perhaps I would find what her name was. The Death Angel lowered his eyes and kissed the words on my bruised cheeks.

“As you wish,”

She was dead.

I saw her body fade away and the soul remained. I was shocked to see how much she resembled me. How no light emitted from her clear eyes. How her steps were not graceful, but float in the air. Like me.

She was human.

I took her light hand, my eyes wet with nothing at all, “Hello, sweet soul. May we journey into the eternal sunset and feel the star’s rays lie softly on our hearts? Could we drape ourselves over the fields of water so that we will never dry out? Would you let me follow you until our essence finally wears out and disappears forever?”

My voice held her more than my hands ever did.

She couldn’t speak because I had stolen her words. She wrapped her light arms around me and hugged me tight. Tears leaked from her eyes and brushed my cheeks. The stains, which had been there for so long, disappeared as easily as they came. As the great burden lifted from me, the Death Angel took both of our hands.

“Time has left us. So now we depart,”

We let the Death Angel take us to the final stage of existence. I turned to ask her name, but I stopped myself. It no longer mattered anymore. So instead I just smiled serenely. And she smiled back at me, but nervously. I could tell she was worried. “Don’t be afraid,” I murmured.

“Me and You are being taken to a safe place…a place made of Nothing At All,