The first two things that Telsing Andrew's mother said when she was born was 'Is she mine?' and 'Is she normal?' The rest of her life is either too boring or too interesting to put into print. She also writes in the literary genre, but has recently returned to her first love of science fiction.

Extra special congratulations go out to her, too, as we've heard she just had a baby!

     The doctor said it was malignant. My first thought was relief. At least I knew what was going to kill me. For years my friends had been dropping off right and left, names crossed off that great census sheet of human life. I had become morbidly fascinated by the death notices in the newspaper and read them every morning with my cup of tea. It was almost disappointing when I found no one I knew.
     "Are you sure it's prostate cancer?" I said and was ashamed by my typical reaction, "I mean, so it's cancer..."
     The doctor gave a studied solemn nod.
     Prematurely, my life reeled past. I remembered the first time my mother told me about Heaven. I had found a cracked egg fallen from a bird's nest. The embryo was miraculously still alive, its beating heart visible through its translucent skin. I asked if we could save it and she told me that it was going to sing in God's garden. This comment swelled my mind with questions, but it was not until I was ten that I got the answers from a local crazy who was rumored to be an ex-minister. For apples and cigarettes, he described what heaven looked like.
     It became the favorite setting for my dreams, but unlike the ex-minister's visions, mine were not so full of light and warmth. I would look down to see my body split along the torso like the emptied chrysalis of a butterfly, and I would be struggling to dry my wings before something dreadful happened. By my cavalier twenties, I found philosophy, and the nightmares stopped. 'Our sentience is united with these bodies and when they fail, it's all dust!' I would shout almost gleefully. But as the end encroached -- My best friend John broke his neck falling off a ladder, Midge having the heart attack, my wife Sally ending it herself with a bottle of tranquillizers ... memories of my dreams of heaven crept back into my head.
     The doctor cleared his throat. "Now I know I've given you a lot to absorb. Maybe you would like to go for a coffee and come back this afternoon so we can discuss it further? It's hard to take in all at once. Unless you have any questions now."
     "No, no questions." Of course I had questions, but I didn't want to hear any of the answers. A sudden rush of decision came over me, "And yes, I think I will have that coffee."
     He was still talking when I walked out the door -- something about the aftercare nurse -- but I wasn't listening. On my way out, I grabbed a handful of leaflets on prostate cancer just so I would know what to expect.

#

     The sea air was like a lady's breath against my cheek -- warm and inviting. My son had been shocked when I sold the house and bought a cabin and a small charter boat. He had asked if everything was okay, perhaps remembering my idle threats to 'go in style rather than tied to a hospital bed' but I reassured him that I was just tired of city life. The illness was far from incapacitating me yet. Except for some minor difficulty urinating -- the damn thing just didn't want to start up -- I would not even know that I was sick. I hoped that the end would be fast.
     But there was no indication of it happening today. I felt better than usual. The sun was just skimming the top of the water, stirring the mist on its smooth surface. About ten miles out, I cut the engine and let the little shock waves rock the boat as I sat back in the captain's chair. I had brought my fishing tackle but was not in any hurry. The sun rose higher and brighter so that I had to pull my hat down further over my eyes. Still I hadn't bothered to bait a line and drowsiness was coming over me. The last thing I heard was a flock of gulls calling to each other.
     And then I had the dream. My body was breaking down the middle. It was like being burned and cut at the same time. I wanted to scream but couldn't operate my jaws. My back arched and there was a crack. The pain started to subside. My limbs moved more easily than they had in years. I yanked them free of the hardened outer surface of what had once been my body -- all six of them? On each side, suspended between the four upper limbs was an almost transparent membrane. I stretched my wings out into the sea breeze.
     Viciously I tried to blink my eyes, expecting to come awake again in my captain's chair but I could not.  My wings had started to harden and darken to a night time black. Each time a gust of sea breeze hit them, I felt pulled a little upwards. And then a great gust swept up behind me, knocking me off the boat toward the sea. I saw my other self -- a body of an old man sprawled out across the deck of an anchored boat, mouth open, flies entering, eyes staring vacant. But I didn't have time to deal with that right now. Instinctively I repositioned my wings so that I sailed upward.
     Now that I had begun my ascent, it seemed impossible to turn back. The blue of sky faded to the near black of space. Even as my new body got closer to the sun, my eyes were fixed on the wonder of seeing our planet from above. Just like a tourist, I noted the continents, and the light splashes of big cities. I was paying such rapt attention that I nearly collided with a strange creature. 
     It was completely black and had short legs with long toes that seemed perfect for grabbing and a pair of huge wings through which the light of the sun faintly glowed. It turned to me. Its face was smooth except for a small slit where a mouth would be on a human and a patch of shimmering skin on its forehead. I thought of my heart beating too fast, my palms sweating, my breath getting heavy, but none of that actually happened. Those reactions belonged to a different body, the one I had left on the boat far below.
     The creature spoke slurry broken English through the slit, "Pardon. You go up there." It pointed with a foot.
     I shook my head.
     It spoke more urgently. "You go up there or die." When I didn't react, the creature grabbed my leg with his foot, and threw me above him. I clawed at him with my toes - my black elongated toes. "I am like him," I said softly to myself. Just as I said the words, the light of the sun hit me in its full beautiful force. I was mesmerized by her soft caressing.
     The strange creature, who was now beneath me, said, "See. Feel better now."
     "Yes, I feel much better."
     It was only after several hours that I noticed a pair of feet dangling above me as well. I looked around and saw that there was a wall of us, all with wings outstretched towards the light. They were muttering away in as many languages as I had heard on Earth and many that I was not familiar with. The one above me spoke in French, something along the lines of: I quickly forget the old life. I stared down to where the being I first encountered was basking, and said, "What are we doing here?"
     "Pardon?"
     Even though I had figured out that my own face must look the same, I was frightened by the strip of silvery sheen for eyes that stared back at me. My voice wavered as I said, "Why are we here?"
     "Why?"
     The French person above answered in fluent English, "We are here to take in the goddess of light."
     And then another voice, with a British accent, spoke about three creatures down on my row, "Don't listen to her. She's one of those new age types. You know into alternative therapies and that crap."
     "At least I am not afraid."
     "You think I'm afraid," shouted back the Englishman or at least as loudly as our little mouths would allow. "I'm bloody thankful that I made it this far. We're the survivors."
     "Watch," shouted the creature below me whose nationality I hadn't yet been able to figure out yet "Watch it die."
     Another creature had swooped several miles away. You could just make out in the darkness that there was something wrong with its wings. Suddenly, it shrieked as its body balled up and fell straight toward the sun.
     "Another crisp cake," said the Englishman.
     Someone else shouted in Spanish, "El inferno!"
     I was so confused. I had accepted that this was not a dream. I had even accepted that my human body was dead and that I had not managed to do all I had wanted to when I was alive. I was regretting that I did not appreciate my son's efforts to come and visit me. How long would it be before they found me floating in that boat? I thought even that maybe I should have gone in for treatment to prolong my life just that little bit longer. But I had not accepted this. I did not even know what this was.
     And then things changed again.
     Everyone started flying out of position.
     "Time," said the creature below in broken English.
     "J'ai prêt," said the French woman.
     And even I had this feeling, as vague and unexplainable as it was, that it was indeed time.
     I tried to keep up with the rest of the flock as they slowly circled the sun, being tugged by some far off destination.
     "Where are we going?" I kept shouting, hoping that someone would answer. The effort of my plaintive cries and confusion was causing me to fall all the more behind.
     Strong toes grasped onto my shoulders once again.
     "You're quite the idiot," said the Englishmen, letting go of me and urging me forward with his powerful luminescent wings.
     "If you fall behind, you won't make it. I was the first at the sun so I know some things. We're the survivors."
     He had said this before but again it made very little sense.
     This must have been obvious because he gave what sounded like an attempt at a sigh, "Look, you know how you thought you died?"
     Yes. I could remember my body split in two... only it wasn't really. It was just lifeless.
     "Well we didn't. Lots of them did die today. You see them make it half way through the sky and then fall back or get nearly to the sun and sort of explode or refuse the sun and die. The small ones always die. I guess they didn't get enough out of their first life."
     Constellations blurred past. Finally, exhausted and feeing like I was not going to make it, we stopped. The sun, we rested beneath, was bluer in color than the one I had grown up with but the light was just as delicious. No one spoke for a while as we regained our energy.
     One by one, their wings lit up and then their bodies changed to a shimmering iridescence. Even I had started to glow. I swooped down to join them. A new feeling had overcome me. I was unbearably amorous. It made me twist and turn in an almost pleasant agony. Then another creature came toward me. I did not know who it was but that did not matter. It grabbed onto my back and I felt warmth fill me. After awhile I was bloated by it, and desperate for the other creature to let go. I shook as hard as I could with my wings so that it was dislodged. Again, I felt calm. I watched almost with disinterest when the creature, that had moments ago been clutching so tightly onto me, did its death dance.
     Only a few others still spun and danced in the sky -- their colors bright. I had dulled to black again. It was almost with disinterest that I noticed each of them grow weary and then fall.
     "I'm the survivor." All the rest had disappeared, but I did not feel lonely. Already squirming inside of me was something restless. Never before had my task been so clear. Swiftly, silently I moved away. Though I did not have a nose, some guidance system suggested the places that seemed the most fertile. The life inside of me burbled with impatience. 'Soon,' I assured it soothingly, 'Soon I will find a place for you to be born.' For life to be seeded again on a barren planet. It will grow, multiple and become human, and die. Only some will not die as quickly as they imagine.

© 2003 Telsing Andrews