(for my sister)
The air spoke and Veolla could hear it. Still, she lay under heaps of sheets. Her verdant eyes gazed without blinking not out, but into the openness.
Polished oak floors supported her bed: a throne under high ceilings. No other furniture stood in the room except for a gold-trimmed Victorian mirror that only embellished the feeling that in her loneliness, she was not alone.
Most would consider the company of those no longer present intimidating. But her tenderness gave her strength as the soft foliage of a rose allows it to remain beautiful in winter.
I awoke down the hall. The white sense of morning shone through sheer curtains and I saw (since I tried to feel what I knew my sister could see, without trying) the shapelessness of shaking atoms.
Veolla had persisted through the night; fearless of the dark. My awareness of this was not through words nor sight, but through the circuit of light that kept us connected regardless of physicality or place. Though I could empathize with her ability to see through time, I could not do so myself; at least not as vividly. Veolla had always crafted magic the way gravity holds us to the earth and allows us to watch, individually, each star on Orien's belt. She was rarely predictable in prophetic moments; but kept you steady on a rapidly spinning planet.
I entered the suite to find Veolla calm. The right side of her face was gently exposed; the left, guarded in down pillow. She stretched her slender arms and arose with eyes fluttering wide.
As had been shared so many mornings wiping sleep from our eyes, we walked through the room we knew was never empty to have coffee downstairs in wool socks and satin robes.
e. chayes
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