Elliot Taylor lay in his bed at the age of one-hundred-and-five years old. He was covered in sheets and blankets up to his chin to protect his frail ancient body against the chill winter air that always found its way through the smallest cracks throughout his large house and drift into the spacious rooms. As he lay there he gazed at the many framed photographs that decorated his four walls and his desk and dresser across from him.
Each picture was of a precious memory of his life gone by. Pictures of family, of his mother and father, brother and sister, and stepfather, and later on of his late wife who he had for seventy years and their four children of two boys and two girls who were now all adults with families of their own. Pictures of his grandchildren and more recent great-grandchildren took up the ends.
Mixed in these pictures of the people closest to him were also pictures and mementos of the most important events in his life. Such as fliers and and articles that announced his many great achievements as a scientist and botanist, included were ones from the year he'd won his Nobel prize for discovering a new solar system where intelligent life was found living on a planet in it, and also various prizes and collectibles from his trips around the world. He had seen nearly every corner of the world on his expeditions including Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe.
He smiled contentedly as he looked back on all those years gone by. He had lived his life well, full of love and adventure and excitement, and now the years were taking their toll on his body and he hadn't been able to get out of bed for a year and a half now. He knew for certain his time was nearly up now, and he was filled with pride and pleasure that he was able to leave this world behind without any regrets or things left unsaid or undone. If given the chance to live his life over he would change not a single thing of it.
As his mind wandered from these thoughts, his eyes were attracted to the framed pictures on his bedside table right beside of him. They were pictures of him and the people he loved the most with another being who he loved more than anyone or anything, E.T.. The love he had for E.T. was a different kind of love than he had for any other person or creature, it was a love that transcended all earthly boundaries, and perhaps even the boundaries of his heart if it were possible.
If E.T. hadn't come into his life when he did the first time, he was sure he would have gone down a dark road, in fact not just him but all of the people around him who were in his life both before and after E.T. had come. E.T. had touched the lives of so many people during his many trips to Earth. He was sure E.T. had saved him during those various times in every way that a person can be saved, and in return he had also saved him just as many times.
As Elliot's thought filled with memories of E.T. he began wishing he could see him again now, if only just to say goodbye. He began to close his eyes then, but almost as quickly they opened wide again as he began to see a series of brilliant yellow, blue, and pink lights gathering in a corner of his room. Then the lights began to envelop each other and start to take on a shape. Soon that shape transformed into the figure of E.T. himself. He stood in Elliot's room looking exactly as he had from the moment he had first seen him when he was ten years old.
A grin lighted Elliot's face as E.T. waddled slowly up to his bedside. E.T. smiled serenely as his heart light began to glow a faint ruby red glow, a glow that seemed to reach his huge ocean blue eyes which held the wisdom of billions of years old.
Elliot was now covered with almost as many wrinkles as E.T. was and he also had hardly any more hair than E.T. did, and his fingers were just as long, thin and bony. Yet at the same time Elliot felt like the same bright and inquisitive ten-year-old boy who had met E.T. ninety-five years ago. For he had never lost that bright and inquisitive outlook of the world because of E.T. and his teachings about life, love, and the Universe.
"E... T... You've... come... back!" Elliot said in a slow gravelly voice similar to E.T.'s own voice.
E.T. smiled and as he came up to him he rested his hands onto Elliot's bed-covers. "Elliot..." he began solemnly. "I heard your wish, as I have always heard your wishes... and I was able to be transported here as so few of my race are privileged to do, only those who have achieved a great deed of comic proportions," he added the last with humbleness of cosmic proportions.
"E.T..." Elliot said slowly. "I believe my time on this Earth is about to come to its end."
E.T. nodded with a sad smile. "That is true, and I can do nothing about it at all. For though I can heal wounds and some sickness you have nothing in you which needs to be healed at this time, as your time was written in the stars long before you were born as was mine. Although mine is millions of years away from yours. In truth, your lifetime is but a heartbeat of my own." Tears brimmed E.T.'s great orb-like eyes at the corners as he said this with deep sorrow and regret.
Elliot returned E.T.'s expression and then said, "E.T., there is something I've always wanted to ask you, and I think that now is the time for it. Do you know about what happens after we die?"
E.T. looked as if he had just been asked something of cosmic proportions, which he truly had been. Though he replied to it with frank honesty. "To my knowledge and understanding of the Universe and the way it works, when our time comes to an end and our bodies deteriorate and decay into dust, our living essence, that which makes us who we were when we lived is released and goes into the source from which all things originated, that which the Universe itself was created from. And that living essence goes into it to help to bring life to new things of all kinds, stars, and planets, and also other creatures including other humans, and the older more vivacious the energy of it is the more cosmic it can become when its released. So that is why I believe you and I could never really say goodbye."
Elliot smiled as E.T.'s words had filled him with hope and comfort. There was still one thing though. "Will I be conscious when my living essence departs from my body?" he asked.
"No, I don't think so," replied E.T..
"That's what I thought," admitted Elliot. Then he asked, "You've died before, haven't you, and come back to life? Was that because it wasn't your time then?"
"No, it was not my time then," said E.T.. "Though from the information I gathered from my fellows who were on board our ship coming for me at the time, I believe I came back because they had combined their heart lights, that which contains our living essence of love and goodness, and sent their energy from them to me, although I also believe that you gave a helping hand in it also."
"I did? But how?" asked Elliot.
"I was regaining my consciousness while you were speaking to me. I was only semi-conscious at the time, but I heard and felt within my heart that was being reignited your love for me which was of cosmic proportions and it gave an added strength to the love and energy already filling me from my companions heart lights and so I was healed thoroughly in body and in heart and that was how I returned to living. Because you are a very rare kind of human who feels empathy for others and have a heart light of your very own, although it may not be as bright as mine to look at it as present as mine anyways."
Elliot smiled at this revelation to him. He reached out his hand from underneath the covers and clutched onto E.T.'s hand. "I hope my descendants will continue to know you for the rest of your lifetime, no matter how long it may be," he said.
"I believe they will," said E.T, squeezing Elliot's hand in return. "And the truth of us will never die, long after you and I are both gone, our essences will forever shine light in the Universe."
Elliot smiled a happy smile as he continued to hold onto E.T.'s hand. He then suddenly felt a small bit of warmth light up as E.T. had lit his forefinger and he felt the light of it course through his body and mind, enlightening him thoroughly with ecstatic energy and he knew right then that E.T. was quite right that he did indeed have a heart light like his.
Then E.T. watched a sad, yet serenely loving smile as Elliot's still smiling face relaxed itself into an expression of eternal peacefulness and his eyes closed and his last breath escaped from him and his hand lost its grip on his own.
E.T. gently laid Elliot's and down on his chest that was covered by the blankets. And then he looked up and over at the window behind him at the stars glittering in the night sky and thought that they now seemed to be shining even more than he had ever seen in his long life now that they had gained new energy for their lights.
E.T. smiled a bittersweet smile as he let his equally bittersweet tears flow down his face in tiny rivers through his wrinkled features and he murmured, "And so... his essence lives on forevermore."