Æstival Tide

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INSIDE OF A REGENERATION vat on Seraphim, the highest level of Araboth, something wakes. Once a man and now something less than that, still it thinks of itself as him; still he recalls the manner of his dying, as though it were a dream.

Because, as the poets say, Death was really just a brief sleep after all. There was a smell of brimstone, and of sleet; then a wash of light the color of the sea. Then, for a timeless reach, there was nothing: that was when he was really dead. But now he is waking once more; and if he had a voice he would shriek to shatter the chamber that imprisons him.

The woman stands above the vat, staring down at the puffy white body with its net of tubes and wires running from it. She knows he is alive again. She says nothing; only leans forward a little, so that the cuff of her crimson surgical gown trails into the vat of nutrients and tangles with a tube running into the man’s mouth. Her mouth opens and she whispers a name; and almost, almost she can imagine that he might hear her.

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