I whisper it against her skin. My lips are cracked. My voice is a rusty hinge. But the sound… it doesn't die. It hangs in the cold air like breath. Like proof.
I don’t know which is right. Language is a living thing, and I have been dead for so long. Dead things don’t speak. They only moan. warm bodies mtrjm kaml
But moans are just words that forgot their shape. I whisper it against her skin
I point at my chest. Then at hers. Then I make a fist and open it slowly—a flower, a bomb, a heart. But the sound… it doesn't die
But now, inside this ribcage—this dusty apartment where my heart used to live—something is scratching at the floorboards. It wants out. It wants to spell.
I see her sleeping on the floor of the 747. The broken windows frame a moon that looks almost fake, like a prop left over from the old world. Her hand is open. I touch her palm with one finger. Not to eat. To feel.