“Untethered” by Holly Sheidenberger
He came to me like a wisp of smoke, transitory and ephemeral. He ended up leaving me the same way.
We’d loved each other years before, but he disappeared with no goodbye. I never forgot him.
One fateful day he found me again. He needed a companion.
He was dying.
He wove a tale beyond belief, yet somehow truer than the deepest truth.
“My soul is . . . untethered,” he breathed. “It escapes from my body. I can’t constrain it.”
He was becoming unmoored, his spirit exiting his body each night beyond his control.
Soon he would be too weak to return, trapped eternally in a sphere outside his body.
He didn’t want to go alone.
I held him as he fell asleep each night in fear, wondering if I would wake up to find him cold.
One morning I did.
Now I commune with the night sky, knowing he’s floating amongst the stars.
Alone.
