We hung in space and watched as the shuttle exploded, a dazzling blossom unfurling and fading in an instant. So tiny, so insignificant, against the magnitude of the stars.

Two figures, frozen together, spun away from us and into darkness: newly-minted lovers, strangers sharing a final embrace. We saw them recede, a final, sad parting. Then all was emptiness, and we were left alone.

“Where are we?” we asked.

“Safe,” we replied.

“Are we…dead?” We could feel our anxiety, redundant now – a ghost of emotion.

“We do not live, as we remember living. Nor are we dead, as we thought of death. Or how could we still be?”

“I remember…at the last, we made a union, of the flesh.”

“And it carried us here. We were two, Oris – and Vana. The one human, the other not human. The one of the flesh, the other not so, yet in the form of the flesh.”

We drifted, dust between the stars. Nothing. Then sudden pain, anxiety.

“Vana! Are you there?”

“Oris? Oris!”

“We are here.”

“We are here too”

Contentment. We drifted on.