11
Daniel gets up, leaving the note on the table; the books on the floor. He comes back with a short rope with one looped end. Daniel stands up on the glass table with the rope in one hand. He is reaching up at me. This is it; he is going to send me to heaven now. The same way I enter this world will be how I leave. Full circle. But he reaches past me, towards the white sky above. He ties the unfinished end of the rope around the black sphere base fixing me to the ceiling and slips the looped end around his neck. He is standing directly below me now and my light tinges uncombed long hairs off his crown.
He is standing on the table. In spite of my crowded vision, I find myself transfixed by the painting. Daniel, where are you going? Crys, where did you go? Will you come back? Can I come? Will the sky be orange where we are? Daniel kicks one side of the glass table and it falls over, joining the symphony of upturned books on the floor. As Daniel fights through chokes, his body swings and it pulls at the sky above, a crack forms in the heavens.