Lee stood at the foot of the bridge, listening to Guin’s thoughts directedcto him.

“Shadowgrass does not know what city traffic is like. He doesn’t comprehend why cars used to smash into each other.”

Lee watched a mosquito fly up through his exhaled breath into his nose.

He thought back to her. “Yes.  I wonder how many people have said, like me, how proud I am of your progress.  To watch you grow back into your old personality again has been a privilege, knowing, as I do, how we lean on and absorb the personalities of others to fill in the new empty places in our thought patterns.”

They looked up at the stars together, hand-in-hand, in childlike amazement of the universe they knew so little about.

“You danced amazingly well last night.”

He heard her smile in her voiced thoughts.

“You, too. But more than that…you were a gray-eyed angel, my friend outside of time. Our minute and thirty seconds is, was an eternity. I can remember every look on your face, every turn you made and every handhold down to the last bow.  You are the embodiment of the infinite well of happy laughter that feeds my thoughts.”

They stood in the greenhouse silently listening to the insects hatched from precious cargo brought to Mars.

The starlit sky rotated slowly.