The cells are shutting down.
　　The metabolis/m, the blood flow, the heart beat.
　　She can feel it, taking over. From a single alveolus to each and every breath of her open pores.
　　She can feel the diffusing toxicity of carbon monoxide.
　　She can feel that she’s dying, lonely and slowly as she is.

　　“Jo.”
　　A sad voice came through all the obscuring s/moke, gently brushing its way to her eardrums.

　　Oh, right, that’s my name, or should I say “was“ ?
　　Tricky question, cuz I’m probably the closest living thing to death right at this moment.

　　It has been a suffocating while since someone ever called her name, or to be more precise, to talk to her. And vice versa.
　　All these moments of pathetic absurdity should trace back to the lilting voice, the one who sang out “Jo” like an intriguing line.

　　“I’m dying.” Said Jo weakly to the female voice coming out of nowhere.
　　“So was I.” She replied. “I was Kellen.”
　　Jo took in her voice almost greedily, and how she wished their names could be placed together in a sentence, just once.
　　Something like “Jo and Kellen”, perhaps.

　　“Can I have a look at you, Kellen. I’m pretty lonely, you know.”
　　“Not anymore.” Kellen sighed, “You can see me if you want, of course, if you open your eyes first.”
　　Jo did so.
　　If she were still at her days of young and dumb, she’d probably be amused by her own stupidity.
　　Right, how can one even see without opening their eyes ?

　　Upon the first streak of light that entered Jo’s iris, there was Kellen.
　　The ghost of Kellen, the hallucination of Jo, whichever.
　　After all the fleeting moments of life and death, Kellen hasn’t changed much, the same dark hair and pale skin, the s/mooth, modulated voice that always seems to drag Jo into some mossy marsh filled with s/moked honey butter.

　　And so hasn’t the moon and night of Winter Solstice, year after year, or the tune and tide of a midsummer’s song, verse after verse.

　　“Why have you come to me ? ”
　　“A lonely death is also a painful one.” Kellen leaned down, until she was eye level with Jo, who was tucking her knees under her chin and crouching in the corner, dying.
　　“…from what I have experience.” She added, causing a sour pot of guilt to boil and rage inside every part of every parts of Jo.

　　Hot tears start streaking down her chins, the mixture of regret, remorse and shame has tormented her for decades, and everything is finally fragmenting, at the very moment Jo set the charcoal pile on fire.

　　“I’m so sorry.” Jo sobbed, “I should be there for you.“

　　“Don’t be.”
　　That was why Kellen came.
　　“You loved me, silently, painfully, unconditionally. It’s my turn to be here for you, Jo. ”
　　“H-how did you……” Despite all the brain-fog and dizziness, vivid soberness struck on Jo, in a short moment she tasted the heartaching bitter-sweet of such vulnerability.
　　“I saw you in my life review. What a shame to realize something so beautiful and pure only before I drew my last breath.”
　　Kellen cooed gently, with a touch of drab depression in her tone.

　　Jo beamed, her eyes glittered in the greyish fog, all of the sudden, her sunken cheek and dark circles seemed to be overshadowed in the presence of her s/mile.

　　“Keep on talking, this is all I shall wish.” She told Kellen, who was desperately trying to make her feel better.

　　“Memories flash before your eyes when dying, that’s astonishing, I mean, it’s a second in reality, but centuries, cognitively.”
　　“I guess that’s what time dilation is all about, the formula of time, gravity, and velocity.”
　　“My soul was approaching the speed of light upon detaching itself from the flesh, time was relatively slow for me, then.”

　　Jo was immersed in the idea, so that’s why this is feeling like forever right now ? Am I leaving this tattered body and rampaged universe, in the speed of a photon beam ?

　　“Jo, come to me, after it’s over, will you ? ” Kellen proposed, uttering clearly in the vague.

　　Lights were dimming, Jo could still see the dancing glow in her failing vision.
　　Les raisons de vivre et les raisons de mourir. She thought to herself, calmly. In days of darkness, you were the hearthstone.
　　The quote came from her favourite poet during her high school days, when she first fell in love, and has thus far been entangled in love.

　　Their eyes met, through the thin air and dense ash, with a Tannhauser Gate and river styx in between. They both s/miled, naive as first sight.
　　Unprecedentedly, Jo had the urge to seek for entity, and simultaneously, yearned for her end.

　　“You do not have to be good.
　　You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
　　You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
　　Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
　　Meanwhile the world goes on.
　　Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
　　Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
　　Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
　　the world offers itself to your imagination,
　　calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over
　　announcing your place in the family of things.”
　　—Mary Oliver.

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