I can see her out of the corner of my eye. She is no longer matter, so light can no longer reflect from her skin and hair and beautiful eyes. Those parts of her are decaying in a wooden box weighed down by a heavy carved stone. She hates this place. It makes her feel dead.
She is dead, you might argue. And the logical part of me would agree. I can no longer touch her. I can no longer hold her. I can no longer watch the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps.
But I can feel her nearby. I can hear her voice. Not the musical fluctuation of sound caused by her breath vibrating her vocal cords, but her inner voice. What she heard inside her own head when she thought and I now hear inside my head. When I talk to her, she responds.
I know, as a man of science, that you cannot observe a system without having an effect on that system. I know that you cannot interact with a system without becoming a part of that system. Some would say that what I hear with my mind’s ear is purely the product of my overactive imagination, but isn’t imagination simply listening deeply enough to hear through the illusion of reality. The illusion of death.
In any case, I hear her say clearly: “This is depressing. Can we go somewhere else? A cafe? The beach? A movie?’ And I take her there. I am her eyes and ears and fingers and tongue, so I trace my fingers along the edge of the raspberry tart I ordered for her, even though I don’t care for them myself. I crumble the crust into soft sweet sand between my fingertips and taste the sweet perfume of its filling because she can’t. She brings a smile to my lips.
Some say that these are just memories teasing my grief-stricken mind. But I’m not calling to mind the past. These sensations are very much in the present. As is everything. Even as her fingers rot in the grave, she still touches my heart.
Literature in Small Doses 