“I have just one more thing to say,” he begins, mumbling to the wind while watching mysterious lights flicker against a swirling fog. “Before I walk away.”
A thousand voices whisper to his back. They begin at the flesh of his sensitive nape, just below the hairline, caressing sound waves against his cool skin, until they work their way over the curve of his ear.
His head rings to the chorus and he fights the wince that settles in his joints.
He can’t make out their words, but some speak with quick urgency, and the others, with a slow melody of understanding – a gentle patience – allowing him to declare his last wish before his spirit crosses to a fate unknown.
“See to it that she’s cared for. Make sure she is loved and never wants. Don’t let her go hungry.” Lifting his hands, he marvels at the invisible tug. It urges him to head toward the light, and for a brief moment, his thoughts are distracted by its undeniable pull, the smell of fresh wild flowers and the sun beating on warm skin.
He stops, gulping past the heavy rock in his throat, remembering her petal pink lips as they twitched into a smile. Thinking he can touch the image, he reaches forward. His fingers slip through air. “Grant her everything I wanted to give, but couldn’t.”
He doesn’t know what the voices are, he doesn’t know what they represent, but he hopes they grant this one last request. The only wish consuming his soul is the well-being of another, his everlasting absence imminent.
The voices fall silent and he steps into the light, the memory of her lips fading from his mind forever, an addition to the collective fog.
D. Fischer 
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