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It was on a frozen planet that knew no light, only the forgotten side of darkness. Open to the pitch of space, the snow caught the twinkle of billions of stars, reflected it outward as the planet's only source of light. Symone had been lost, followed the wrong drift, and found himself wandering in the wastelands, barren and empty. The blood stilling in his body, crystalizing against his veins and dragging, bleeding him blue from the inside out, that was when Symone found you. Another of his kind, frozen in ice. There had been a body of water here before, warned against and treacherous. You had fallen in, drowned. Lungs slowing, Symone watched you unmoving, childlike curves lodged behind inches of clear ice. When you and he were first born, you two died within inches of each other, on a frozen planet lost in time.

When it happened that you two were born again,you hated each other, Symone astride a demon of hell, the hot-headed son of a warlord, and marching on your small seaside village. You had ten years of simple, sleepy life swimming in the sea, learning all the ways to live off the generosity of the mother who slept at the bottom of the ocean. You was ten when Symone rode in and sliced your head messily from your body. Symone, bloodthirsty, had a moment of regret, not having meant to kill the child,you, but he was bad at swords and loving peace. He loved the taste of blood and the part of flesh, the charred remains of this loved place, or that loved hand. The first kill in the taking of a strategically placed village, and it would make a fine trophy, Symone thought, piercing the severed head of your child like head and shoving it in on a sack that hung from his saddle. Symone took to storming forth, troops speeding behind him, with the your head swinging in his hand raised aloft by the dirtied hair, face angelic in death, you were his banner of war.

Born again, across from each other on a midwestern cul-de-sac, rode tricycles into each other and left rocks in one another's mailboxes until they called a truce, taking turns scrawling crayon murals on the sidewalk, walking home together, growing up together. Symone was your best man at your wedding, was the first call when your marriage fell apart. You were the only person that read Symone's first book, about math and architecture and the color of dawn, and held his hand while cancer ate his lungs. You stayed the longest at his funeral, published his unwritten book and watched the sales shoot skyward. And you were the one that donated every last cent to cancer research, saw your best friend walking around street corners, saw him driving the opposite direction, saw him in closing elevators.

And again, born into nothing and starving on the streets, dying too young and too hungry. Again, privileged youth with an impeccable golf swing, a hooker with bills to pay and a heart like a stone; heavy, and heavier still. A skateboarder with a skinned knee, a heroin addict with a soft spot for soccer players. A schoolboy, a sociopath, a graduate student, a girl. In love, apart, at work, in bed. Born on opposite ends of the world, then the universe, but finding each other again, pulling each other through time. Reincarnation and rebirth, star-crossed and soul-mated, Symone and you were bound, bodies like puzzle pieces, tethered together like ships and anchors in storms at sea--often blind, often drowning, but line taut, persistent against the pull and sway.

But then, it all went in reverse, your lives passing before you as you stood still. Symone grasping at your pale and suddenly thin hands, a look of fear on his features. His voice calling out your name as versions of yourself faded in the middle of what they were doing. Your eyes wide, chest suddenly filled with pain. And hunger ate at your every core, where did this come from you asked Symone. Your friend, your only constant in your lives. But his hand which had been grasping your skeleton thin one was no longer there. Eyes open a crack seeing a murky yellow celing. The scent of filth, of decay, filled every pore of your senses. It hurt, where are you?

Tilting your head, the movement taking forever, you see bright wallpaper, a bit faded with a charcter on it. One that looks like Symone staring out from its painted perch on the wall. Oh, you think. Oh. And then, its quiet, its over. Pain, scent, time, nothing matters. Nothing is felt. Its the end.

The next morning, headlines blare in newspapers, on tv screens, in the voices of the world. 'Did you hear about "...." they locked their son in a room until he died from maluntrioun and sickness. ' 'Oh what a shame that is' 'such a shame' He was only ten they say, they say it took you three years to die. But you lived a lifetime in those three years, didn't you?