George

George

I sat beside the bed in the hard wooden rocker I had pulled from the corner of the room.  I lay my hand next to hers and looked into those large, luminous, almond shaped eyes.  Her breathing was laborious.  I had known her since I was a small child, although apparently at the time I thought she was a male, because I named her George. 

George had been with me since I sat on top of the swing set, singing off key, watching the heat storm lighting up the sky in the next county.  I knew George was there to watch over me and I wasn’t afraid.

“George,” I whispered, “tell me again.  Tell me where you come from.  Tell me your story.”  I didn’t want to lose her, I wanted to keep her engaged.  She had been my friend nearly all my life. 

Earlier in the week, I found her collapsed in my back yard.  She never showed herself to the neighbors, this was highly irregular.  I gathered her up into my arms and hurried into the house.  My friend cradled in my arms, I sat down on the sofa.  She looked up at me then, those thin nearly nonexistent lips cracked slowly into a smile. “I knew you would find me.  They are calling me.  This is what we call ‘moving on’.”

Squeezing her gently, I kissed her on the cheek and lay her out on the sofa.  Hurriedly, I retrieved all sorts of bedding.  She smiled and clucked at me.  “How long do I get to hear your voice?  How much more time do I have.”  I pleaded with my dying friend although I knew her time was close and my pleas would go unanswered. I felt as a small child again.

With pillows propping her up, I plugged in my cell phone to record her.  She smiled, “Remember who I am and where I come from, that recording won’t last a moment.  Even as you record, it will erase.  That is the way of it.  How it must be for us all to survive.”

Looking at her, I thought she looked exactly as she had the first time I saw her.  She had superimposed her face over a full moon.  Thinking I was just a child and wouldn’t notice her antics, she was quite surprised when I called out, “Hey George.”  In less than a blink of an eye, her image was off the moon.  I could just make out her shape hovering in the foliage of our maple tree.  I was to learn later, that was one of her favorite tricks; hiding in the trees to observe. I smiled a slow smile and said, “Hey George.”

Laying on my couch she smiled back and said, “If you hadn’t made me laugh all the time, I would have been invisible to you to this very day.”  The small Gray coughed.  “I have betrayed so many secrets to you.”  Sitting on the edge of the sofa, I simply smiled and nodded. 

“It’s time for me to go back through to the other side.  Remember to look for all the signs to see your new observer.  Look for the: Elf, Fairie, Angle, God or Alien.  We are all one and the same, sharing the same space and time, merely an alternate dimension.”  With that, she winked and was gone.  Soon, her body became as shaped mist and simply flew out the window. 

I am writing her the stories as related to me by my alternate dimension observer.  Here lies the stores as told to me, first hand, by my own George.  

leigh