The Conjoining

“No wonder you didn’t fit together. After all, you met in a grocery store,” she told me. “What was the conjoining like?”

“He met us by a white airplane named ‘Paradise.’ He had an old Italian/Romanian face – a little grey and weathered – and spoke sparsely. He directed us into the pilot pit and stood just outside the hatch. He said ‘You’re Almost Infinite,’ closed the hatch, and the plane took off without controls.”

“Then what?”

“We were split up. We didn’t stay together, as I thought. The plane dissipated and I fell through fog – yes, fog, not clouds. I thought, ‘This is just like life, because you can’t see what’s in front of you.’ When I realized that, pockets of cold air started pelting me all over, shooting through the fog. Then I thought, ‘This is just like life, because you never know what’s coming next.’ Because I couldn’t tell a difference between that and this, I decided to come back. I ‘woke up.’ I never finished the conjoining.”

“I knew you didn’t fit together,” she said, shaking her head.

“I was afraid I’d picked the wrong one,” I said.

“Yep. After all, you met in a grocery store,” she said.