"Vivi?" came a voice.
Who is Vivi? ...Is that... me? Am I... someone?
The light felt so good... so peaceful... so complete.
The light contained every kind of fulfilment, and the knowledge that everything was... okay.
Everything always had been, and always would be... absolutely... perfectly... okay.
"Vivi," said the voice. A face swam into Vivi's awareness. It was a very beautiful face, sublimely compassionate, simultaneously new to her and yet also familiar. "It's not your time yet."
"My time?" asked Vivi. Slowly things started to make sense. I am Vivi. I have a life. I have loved ones. I just—
"Am I dead?" Vivi asked.
The familiar stranger – now Vivi could see the whole of them, a beautiful androgynous figure dressed in white robes, all wreathed in light – smiled and shrugged. "Nothing you can't handle," they said.
Vivi was so full of peace and love and contentment that it was hard to think. No, she didn't want to think. She didn't want the worries and burdens of being alive. It felt so good just to float in this sea of light. It felt so good to be with her familiar stranger. Their love and compassion were obvious, more present and real than the tenderness of any lover Vivi had known – and yet far more free, without a hint of attachment or possessiveness.
"Why should I go back?" asked Vivi. The angel – if that is what they were – just looked her in the eyes and smiled kindly.
Somehow in that smile Vivi understood more than if the two of them had conversed for hours. She remembered her loved ones. She remembered the Statue of Awakening. She remembered all her work and what she was there on Earth to do – she remembered it with greater clarity than she ever had, things she had previously not been consciously aware of; and yet, knowing them now, they seemed perfectly obvious. She even remembered this man who was intent on breaking her statue, and knew the reason why they had to meet this way.
She felt such compassion for him. She felt compassion and understanding for her earthly, limited self. She felt for Peter, and for the news teams at the scene.
Still full of the angel's mysterious smile, Vivi also knew how to go back.
Vivi felt her whole life as a work of art. Everyone she loved and everything she cared about was what she was made of.
Vivi's power began to flow. Her body reformed.
YOU ARE READING
Vivi
Fantasy"Stay with the car," said Vivi. Peter shrugged. "I guess I've seen enough movies to know not to get mixed up in superhero stuff. But you be careful, okay?" Vivi rolled her eyes. "I'm not a superhero." ...
