The fantastic fortune of fantastic blood
Until his body smothered him, until his being felt the need of soaring, the need
Of air...
Wallace Stevens
Death was not the worst moment of Dib's life. Those had come and gone long before. It might have been said, in fact, that death was his greatest moment ever; it allowed his soul, already stretching the boundaries of his frail body, to erupt and go free. It left the confining lump of flesh in a leaping crackle of blue energy, rejoicing, while the part of it that was Dib's conscious was still thinking What? What?, and went bounding and steaming and shaking about the room, spitting exultant azure sparks. It slid through substance, unfettered by the world of matter that no longer had hold over it, and moments later it went screaming upwards, through dirt and grass and atmosphere to bound into the openness of space.
Zim came up from where he had taken shelter behind a computer bank. He shook his head, eyes dazzled with blue lightning, and made his way to where Dib's crushed body lay between two metal coils. The human looked diminished now; there was nothing in his wiry frame to distinguish him from the rest of his race. No hint at the power that had been in him, nothing that let you imagine what he had been. The tightly-wound energy that had made him strong had sprung to pieces. The volatile soul had fled. He looked like nothing now – just a meatpuppet, something that hadn't mattered in the end, or not really.
But as the alien looked closer, he could see that there was no pain on Dib's face. No grief or fear. He looked as though he had just seen something wonderful and was waiting, breathlessly, for it to come closer.
Thousands of miles away already, Dib's soul raced through space, headed for Polaris. He was hearing the murmur of the universe around him, and looking forward to what would come next.
END
Originally completed June 10, 2005. Cleaned up a bit: September 22, 2007.