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George had always loved sunsets, an endless canvas painted with the waning colors of day. If he watched closely he could see when pigment burst from the clouds, an unseen artist’s brush striking the sky.
Sunset soothed a weary mind. The day is done. Rest. And George would embrace it gladly. Crickets chirped a lullaby and the silent waking of the moon brought a calm only night could muster.
George preferred the sunset to sunrise.
His fingers played amongst weary flowers; sleepy daisies and drooping bluebells. They’d keep him company in the dark, wrap him like a blanket as he drifted from wakefulness. Nature was his loyal companion.
As his breath slowed and his eyes slipped shut, he knew he’d be safe.
Sleep, he heard it call.
So he slept.
Hello. Nature’s voice rumbled softly in his ears. George welcomed the opening of his eyes, he knew it’d be pleasant.
“Hello,” he hummed in return. He released plush petals in favor of dark hands filling the space between his fingers. His head turned to observe the familiar figure, cloaked in cloth of pine green and a face as blank as the sun.
“Hello,” they whispered again with a deep timbre from between unseen lips. Gold spun around their head, double halos of captured light beaming warmly upon him.
“I missed you.” George breathed in the smell of fresh grass and cinnamon bark, ozone thunder and salt-sprayed seas. Nature followed him wherever he went but sleep was where they were tangible, able to hold and be held, to warm the emptiness of his core.
He allowed himself to be pulled—pushed up into their waiting arms like a doll. An invisible body pressed against him from beneath veridian cloth and his arms raised to accept their greeting.
“Welcome back, George. I’ve missed you too.”
It was always odd to know that god loved him. God cradled him with careful hands and painted the world to his liking. Raising his eyes to the dreaming sky, George recognized the frozen space above, the gentle pink hues captured by their command.
“It’s sunset again,” he said.
“Do you like it?” God asked.
George nodded. “Yeah.”
God rose so George did too. “What shall we do tonight?”
George swayed on his feet, bent by the blow of the breeze, holding onto the deity’s hand like an anchor lest he float far away. “I don’t know. We’ve done so much.”
“Would you like to fly again?” DreamXD’s head tilted as if to smile. “Or swim to the bottom of the sea? We can see the stars if you wish. We can do everything.”
Everything.
They did everything while George dreamed, an aging mind trapped in a young body. He felt as if he’d lived a thousand lifetimes and orbited a thousand suns yet none at all. He’d seen everything but knew nothing. He always woke with an empty chest and a skewed mind.
Still, god loved him, so he thought nothing of it and loved them in return.
George dug his toes into the soil, watching the flowers wind around his legs, keeping him steady. They relinquished as he stepped forward, rediscovering him with each footfall. His arms splayed out to catch the wind, lifting his mind further away from the waking world.
“I don’t feel like exploring today, XD,” George finally answered, listless in the grass.
“Oh.” The god dipped their head. The flowers wrapped tighter around his feet.
He never meant to disappoint them. It always darkened the land and made its touch harsh. Perhaps they couldn’t understand his humanity, that sometimes he preferred company to entertainment.
“Have you ever been human?” George asked absentmindedly, continuing to hop around the grass like a child.
“No,” XD answered. “I’ve only ever been everything.”
George frowned. “If you’ve been everything, then how have you never been human.”
“I am everything, so I am never one thing.”
George nodded, not fully understanding but appeased all the same. As his hands brushed through long stalks of welcoming flowers, an idea came to him. “I think I want to dance.” He spun around, letting his cape fling about him, smiling at the way it lifted into the air. God stood where they’d been, green cloth melding with the earth like roots, resembling a tree more than a man.
DreamXD hummed, “I’ve never danced before.”
George looked to them with a mischievous smirk. “That’s because you’ve never been human.” Bare soles trampled delicate leaves as he leaped forward before the god. “This time, let me show you something.”
He grabbed their hands, sharp-tipped nails careful around his soft skin as he pulled them from their spot.
“How shall we dance?” they asked with uncertainty.
George laughed. “Just move!” He spun around XD, orbiting the brightness of their face, caught in the gravity of their claws. “However makes you happy.”
DreamXD stayed as they were, merely spinning with George’s steps. “Hm… well your happiness makes me happy.”
George rolled his eyes. “Then copy me.” His steps slowed, crossing back and forth as XD watched intently. “See! It’s simple.”
“Hm…” The cloth around them began to sway, flowing to the rhythm of the grass beneath them and the wind above.
“There you go.” George twirled faster, watching as the divine fabric moved with him, expanding out in flying tendrils like ribbons. It was a tentative dance. George felt the earth under his feet move in waves as the god in their entirety rose and fell like a tide.
Now in a steady rhythm, he guided one of their hands to rest at his elbow, raising the other clasped in his own to the side. In all he did, XD followed. It changed little by little, less chaotic and more practiced. George knew these steps by heart; the pattern burrowed into him when he wore a crown on his head instead of flowers. But that time seemed so far away. His kingdom now resided in the roots of plants and fibers of mycelium, with nature that loved him and followed his every step. Where heartbroken names and disconnected faces once dwelled, he’d fill with the everpresent call to the earth.
Is this living? He’d once asked XD as he slept.
Death is the epitome of life. They’d said. Your decay brings you closer to me.
Then I am dying.
You were always dying.
What happens when I am dead?
Salvation. Reunion.
George pressed closer to the comfort of an ethereal embrace. It was firm and unwavering, unsullied by the fires of war and tragedy of human desire. It cared not for pity. Perhaps if he pressed close enough, he’d become it.
“Do you think I’ll die soon?” They continued to dance together, a slow spiral spewing starlike petals in their wake.
“Soon is relative. To me, it will always be soon.”
George scoffed. “You’re avoiding the question.”
DreamXD thought quietly. “In truth, I don’t know. However long you live is your choice.”
The leaves beneath their feet crunched loudly in George’s ears.
“I think…” George rested his head on XD’s shoulder. “The more I stay with you, the more I die. When I live here, I die out there. Every time I wake up, I feel more and more hollow.”
The ribbons of DreamXD’s robes encircled him tighter. “Then what do you want? A life out there or a life here?” George’s lips pursed to a thin line. “In time, you’ll always return to me. It is your choice whether to brave what you fear.”
“I’m not afraid,” George insisted.
XD’s grip tightened around his palm. “You hide here with me.”
“You wish for me to be here.”
“That I do but you can always ask me to stop.” George hid further into their shoulder. “Here I am effortless. Here, you allow me to guide you. You needn’t do anything. Isn’t that what you want? To forget out there.”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“If I love or hate this.”
“Like you love and hate your friends?”
The reminder is cold, freezing like the claws against his skin. The furrow of his brow deepened. “Don’t remind me, please. You don’t understand.”
“I’m not human. Of course, I don’t understand.” A firm hand stopped them from their slow dance, halting their comforting sway. “Look at me.” Fingers lifted George’s chin, forcing his gaze to the white void that greeted him. “I will never understand your grief. I will never understand your anger. All I can do is bring you comfort in any way I can… I may not know your emotions or comprehend the complexity of your desires but I can understand your emptiness and your apathy. Does that comfort you?”
George found comfort in the soil. He found comfort in the sky. He found comfort in the butterflies’ kisses and brook’s murmur. They were all gifts to him.
Because god’s love was not in knowing him, it was in their omnipresence, their promised union. It only seemed fitting it would end in coalescence.
Slowly, George nodded. “You comfort me.”
Even with an unknown face, George felt them smile. “Good. Then let us dance.”
This time, XD spurred his steps, fingers both gentle and firm to lead him into a twirl. Memories faded to mist as he became pliant, guided by leaves and hands and cloth. The twisting vines beneath George’s feet rose, carrying him higher and higher, XD growing with him towards the stars peering from the clouds. They spiraled faster and George lost track of the ground as he was surrounded by waves of clouds and flowers. XD let out a laugh, the closest to human they could be but even then it mixed with the whistle of the winds and singing of birdsong. In it George became lost. And he smiled.
He smiled until the god’s hands no longer held his, releasing him to the space of his mind. He floated upward into the dark, sinking back into the cold grip of his reality. Sorrow filled his heart but he knew it would be inevitable until he finally turned to the soil for one last embrace.
In the vastness of nothing, George watched the sun rise. The day is waking. Prepare.
As his breath slowed and his eyes slipped shut, he knew he wouldn’t be alone.
Wake up, he heard it call.
And he awoke.