Human Sister

image then appearing in the bedside mirror as an anthropomorphic patch of Russian River fog or a fey white Schrödinger cat, only possibly there, in the pale white light of the moon.
    As I slowly descended toward the bed through the still night air, I noticed my moon shadow drawing near to my dreams’ desire, and in his face I saw that special contented radiance it often acquired during sleep. Smiling dreamily, he reached up toward something wispy between my shadow and the moonlight, and, creating me, pulled me down into his embrace, wrapping himself around me, as he had since we were children: his head on my shoulder, his brow against my cheek, his arm across my chest, his leg between my legs.
    He mumbled that I should never again leave him, and then, with a familiar jolt, departed back into sleep, where he lay quietly for a while before his arm and leg around me stirred and he wordlessly moaned as he woke inside a dream. I wondered what it would be like to accompany him there, to his dreams, as Michael sometimes accompanied me to mine—and so wondering, I drifted off to sleep.
    Later that night, as the moon winked through clouds, their edges glowing brightly in the dark indigo sky, I woke feeling warm and comfortable in Elio’s embrace. His breath moved softly over my breast. His hair exuded its sensual aroma. His heart measured time for our world.

Sara

    T he sky here in Anzen is bright, but no warmth or comfort radiates from it. How huge the terrestrial sky seems to me now, in memory, compared to this tiny, low sky. I wonder what Michael’s children will experience, what thrills, when they leave here—they’ll have to someday, won’t they?—and rise from these dark depths up into the great arching candied-blue dome, where for the first time they will smell, feel, taste the fleshy air.
    And what will they think of the birds and animals, of the amorality of nature—which abounds with infanticide and cannibalism, even the killing of mates in some instances—the unremitting slaughter, the slow painful butchering of prey? Here, they will have the garden dome with its center a fragrant orchard of miniature fruit trees and its walls overflowing with roses, lilies, and marigolds; carrots, beans, and tomatoes; cilantro, basil, and parsley. But in this artificial world where all of their food will be supplied by plants and nutriosynthesizers, where they will not so much as ever see a spider eat a bug, how will they, these strange children from alien depths, respond when they first see a hawk swoop down and moments later hear a small animal’s talon-engendered cry, or when they witness, as I once did, a dog chase and devour a rabbit?
    I was five years old when Lily, fully grown by then but still vivacious as a puppy, went out with me to play in the vineyard. The air was breezy, clear, and cool as we ran through white clover and wild mustard growing between rows of trellised vines. In the midst of play, I lay down for a moment on the aromatic ground. The fields, trees, and hills displayed the pastel pinks, yellows, and greens of spring, and cirrus clouds swirled into the deep blue sky reminded me of blueberries and cream.
    Lily was wild with spring, eager to move on, to swim in what for her must have been an invigorating ocean of feral fumes oozing from the ground. She ran in circles around me, licked my face, leaned back, her front legs set and ready to spring forward, and barked.
    “Yes!” I answered, and jumped up and chased her. Our noisy frolicking frightened a rabbit from its hiding. Lily dashed after it.
    “No! Lily, come back!” I shouted as I ran. When I caught up, heaving for breath, I wanted to scream and push her away from the rabbit, but I remembered her bringing me a dead bird and Grandpa wiping my tears. “It’s natural for Lily,” he’d said, “part of what she is. The great and joyful and terrible mysteries of the world cannot be denied.”
    Lily lay on her stomach, holding the rabbit in her paws, pulling and tearing sinewy flesh with her teeth. I touched her side. She growled as she turned her head toward me. Her tongue dripped reddish saliva, and grayish white fur clung to her nose and the edges of her bloody jaws.
    As I lay on my stomach and pressed my face to her warm, panting side, the stink of rabbit innards seeped through her fur, hollowness grew in my chest, and darkness passed over me, as if I’d been grazed by a black feather.
    Licking my face, Lily fetched me back to