My respects to Mr. Larson, who created this world and owns the people. Much thanks for letting me borrow them for a while to play in mine.

Do You Think I Could Tell People About Your Eyes?

"Mimi." I said quietly, looking down at her grave, so near Angel's. I've only been able to come here a few times since she died. It hurt too much for so long, but now, I don't know. It's not as fresh. The pain isn't as fresh. It's still there, but it's more of a gentle throb in the back of my throat, or a pleasant ache in my chest. I still hurt for her, for the times we'll never get to share, but I can remember all the moments of joy, too. I chose to let go of the moments of pain as best I could. That's what a year of remorse and mourning has brought me to. To remembering without regret. I smiled to myself.

I sat down opposite the headstone, which read, simply:

Mimi Davis

1971-1991

Measure Your Life In Love

"I'm sorry I don't have any flowers for you today." I said, laying back and looking up at the beautiful sky of an afternoon in May. "I didn't plan to come, I just… found myself here. But I want you to know I'll be here more often. I can now. That's what I came to tell you." Clouds drifted lazily by. I could feel the sun warming my t-shirt, a soft breeze moving across my face. The grass was fragrant and comfortable. "This is kind of odd, huh? I feel like we're on a picnic. Though all I've got on me is a pack of gum. Which, if you think about it, is probably all we'd have brought with us on a picnic anyway." I laughed quietly, picturing us laughing as we realized we'd forgotten the key ingredient. "Or we'd have shown up at different parks." I smiled, picturing that, too. "Inevitably, one or both of us would be forced to eat lunch with Mark."

Pause as I stared up at the sky. A bird chirped nearby. We'd always said we were going to get a pet. "Remember when you said we should get a fowl of some variety and name it Bush? I still don't get that."

"That's just sad, Roger." Came a deep voice to my left. I turned my head slightly to see Collins standing a few feet away.

"It was a joke, Collins." I sat up as he came and gave me a hug.

"Riiiiiiight."

"Hey- I've lived in the world long enough to get the irony. And even if I hadn't, I've got you to explain the hard stuff, remember?" We both laughed. A pause as Collins crossed his arms over his chest.

"I wasn't expecting anyone to be around today." Collins said, looking around.

"I'm going in a minute, don't worry." I said, knowing that he probably wanted to be alone to talk to Angel, just like I had Mimi.

"No, no, don't do anything on my account." Pause as he looked down at Mimi's gravestone. "Bet she and Angel are tearing it up in heaven." he smiled to himself. "Keep an eye on her, Meems." And he walked over to Angel's grave.

"I didn't believe you, you know." I said to Collins as he took up a position similar to mine on the ground.

"About?" he asked, looking over at me as I resumed lying on my back.

"About it getting easier." I said.

"And I didn't believe the person who told me." he said. We both looked away then. "It's easy to fall into the mindset that you'll never recover. It's easy to believe you're not strong enough. But then you start to also know that you can't join them. Not really."

"Yeah." Silence for a few moments as we both thought about that. "It's nice. Here. Today." I said, the sentence broken up as though everything after "It's nice" were afterthoughts. Which, I guess, they were.

"Mmm-hmm." Collins agreed. More silence. "I came to tell Angel, but I'm glad you're here so I can talk about it with you, that I quit." You quit NYU?

"What? Why?" I asked, pushing myself up onto one arm to look over at him. He tucked his arms below his head before replying,

"Because I realized that I had other things I wanted to do with my time. Go to Santa Fe. Write more. Read more. Explore." He sighed. "I think it'll be good." Collins smiled up at the clouds. No, I realized, he's smiling up to Heaven. I smiled, too, and lay back down.

"I think so, too." I told him.

"I thought you would." Then, he laughed. "Please tell me that you see the cloud that looks like one of Angel's platforms." He laughed some more, stretching his arms out wide as I exploded into laughter as well. As our laughter fizzled down, he said to me, "You should think about it, too."

"About what?" I asked, slightly confused.

"Writing more. Exploring."

"Maybe. I don't know. I'm kind of moving day-to-day at present." I told him.

"No day but today." He agreed. "Well," Collins stretched once before getting up, "I'm off. See you back at the loft?"

"Aren't you going to talk to Angel?" I asked, surprised.

"Coming here is symbolic more than anything else, Roger. She knew everything I wanted to tell her before I came. As soon as I thought it, in fact. They're never far away." He smiled at me in the sunlight and was gone.

"Always was wise beyond his years." I said quietly. No, that's not giving him credit. He was just always wise.

"Writing more…" I mused. I'd gotten the itch, lately. The past few months. "When you first died, Meems, I wrote like a madman. Mostly crap. Just to feel like I was doing something. Accomplishing something. Getting all of it out somehow. Maybe I was. It did help. A little. Somehow. And then I stopped. Couldn't and didn't want to write anything at all. Now I'm starting to write again. I want to get out. I want to sing, 'cuz, baby, you haven't stopped being inspiration. It's not glory I'm searching for. It's…" I didn't know how to say it. I guess, at it's very simplest level, I just wanted to reach. "Yeah." I decided. "I just want to reach. Out. Spread the story. Our story." Long pause as I thought about what I was telling her. "What do you think about that?" I asked. "Do you think I could tell people about your eyes?"