Another World by Alejandro Gonzales
A burst of salty air struck Anna a few seconds before she noticed the girl standing dangerously close to a ledge. Pulsing orange light surrounded the building she stood on—a library where she’d discovered her favorite authors—and the buttery scent nearly overwhelmed the blue dot’s smell.
She climbed the ladder on the back of the building, raised a hand to signal she meant no harm, and approached the girl one step at a time. “Uh, hi—hi there.”
Darkness that filled the air with a fish-oil stench exploded over the girl, then the salty blue cloud consumed her once more. “Stay away from me. I know what you wanna do and it’s not gonna work. I’ll jump the second I see a cop or firefighter up here.”
“It’s just me. Really.”
An orange tint ate the edges of her aura. “Yeah, well, that’s hardly any better. You don’t even know me.”
Anna took another few steps forward. “No, no I don’t. But I don’t need to. What’s troubling you?”
She shrugged and that darkness came back for a moment. “I—I dunno. Just let me do this alone. I don’t want anyone to see me before. Everyone wants to ignore me—” Here her aura flashed red and Anna suppressed a gag as she tasted copper—“when they can actually help, but suddenly they care when it means life or death.”
“Sweetheart, maybe they don’t know. You have to tell people, no matter how hard it can be. I’ve been where you are before. I know how hard it is. My only friend in the whole world was this beautiful, happy little dog I had. One day she was gone. That was it. No saying goodbye or getting one more hour to play. She was my family. Do you have friends or parents who are around?”
Flash of green and firecrackers only Anna heard; the girl’s face flushed. “Yeah. They wouldn’t get it, though.”
“Have you talked to them? Again, you don’t know until you try. Hm. Have you ever lost someone? Even a pet, like me?”
The blue turned so dark it was almost black. “Yeah.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
“Like I’d lost a piece of myself. Sometimes I still feel empty thinking about my own dog. He was the only person—well not a person, but you know what I mean—that wouldn’t judge me. I couldn’t eat for almost a week and I’d cry in the most embarrassing places and times.”
“Now imagine that feeling multiplied across every person you know. You don’t erase your pain when you die; you just transfer it. What do you say you go home and let everyone know how much you love them?”
She sniffled and nodded. “Can we watch the stars a little longer?”
And so they did, and Anna swore the twinkling stars formed two panting dogs. An orange energy wave burst through the air and the taste of freshly dissolved cotton candy lingered on Anna’s tongue.
This story is dedicated to Angie
Alejandro Gonzales has stories published in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Trembling With Fear, Cerasus Magazine, and elsewhere.
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beautiful
Absolutely genius once again and how you explained what she was feeling was very impressive hugs