The moment they nailed you to the cross, you forgot almost everything you knew. And once they erected the Y-shaped boards on Calvary, you did forget. But, over time, you were able to recover bits and pieces, experiences frozen onto the cosmic memory field like photographs, and here and there your images returned . . .

Here:

The starburst in the sky last night. The blooming ring of reds, blues, yellows, and golds... had seemed so real . . . and yet so dreamlike.

The beauty of the moment – standing outside in the cool autumn night, my arm clasped around you, staring up at the glowing orb with the trees surrounding us and the neighborhood homes – was like the forming of the one perfect thought. The small stars twinkled but none could match the rich luminosity sent forth by the supernova.

The Fourth of July.

We were kids again.

“We left all this a long time ago,” you said, and I squeezed you tight. The cars on the road honked for us to get out of the way, but we ignored them. We were in no danger of getting hit, so I didn’t want to move, plus the moment was so thick that I couldn’t imagine breaking it, not even for death.

“Which do you mean?” I asked. “Our world or their world?”

You chuckled. “Both, I guess. I feel, lately, like we’ve departed from each. But what does that mean? Where do we end up outside of both worlds?”

I thought about it. “In a world of our own, I guess. Do you like that?”

“What – a world of our own?”

I nodded.

“In France?”

Now I laughed. “Yes, France could work. Those people sure seem like they’re from another planet.”

“But we are from another planet,” you said.

“Yes. And now we can’t go back.”

You scoffed. “Like I’d want to. The lugs and slaugs and drugsiz, all that rubbish they take part in over there, what they consider their reality, their existence. What a load of crap. Even Earth – here, in the United States, not in France – is better than there. I don’t want to go back.”

I squeezed you tighter. “Neither do I.”

There:

We were dreaming. The two of us, you and I – and yes you are the woman – lost in the desert, in a landscape of cacti and wavy blond sand dunes, and shrubs like tiny little rodents. One of the shrubs was burning. We approached it. I bent down and put my face close to the flames, bright orange, leaping toward me.

“What is it?” you asked.

“A messenger.”

“From?”

I pointed up.

“Oh.”

I listened with more focus and intensity. I had discerned something of significance in the small burning bush, some underlying sound, something like a voice, but not a voice.

A sound.

With words.

I AM THE I AM . . .

“What?” you said.

I shushed you, listened a moment longer, then replied: “It is coming.”

“What is?”

“Wait . . . no, not what. Who.”

“Fine – who is coming?”

“The man from the stars.” I looked up at your face and saw you were crying. “He’s already here,” you said. I knew at that moment that France was a long ways away.