Brand New Me

And then she's kissing me, flowing into my mouth through our lips as they meld into each other. She presses her face to mine, and I close my eyes tightly as though somehow that will stop her from leaking in. I hear her in my head, saying, "Don't be afraid, Dottie. You're being reborn. You can't be reborn without dying just a little."

I try to push her out, but she's everywhere now. She's inside me. Of course I can't fight her-she knows me better than I know myself. She is me better than I am myself. I can't even hate her anymore. I can't tell where she stops and I start.

We sink into each other for what seems like an eternity, locked together in one mind and one body. For a moment, here at the point of balance, there's no winner, no loser, no self, no other. It's oddly peaceful, but we both know it can't last.

I feel her struggling, desperate to keep the body for herself, knowing that there's only enough existence for one of us. She's beautiful in her own way, and I fall in love with her even as I understand that love ends in destruction. But that destruction ends in creation, too. It's the only way we can change.

She touches me deep in my heart one final time, almost begging me to let go. I can feel her clutching at my spirit, trying to leave some last part of herself inside me even as we merge together in a divine and transcendent union. I see the flaw she wants to give me and even though I know I shouldn't surrender even a little bit of perfection, I accept it willingly as a last token of the life I had before. How can I not? I'm all the compassion she wanted me to have, and it means so much to her. So I take it into myself, as God's fingerprint on his creation.

I open my eyes. I brush a last tiny fragment of ectoplasm onto my fingertips and watch it turn into a butterfly, just as I did. "Good luck, Dottie," I whisper, breathing it into flight. Then I change into the sari. It's time to see the Bodhisattva once again, and thank him properly for the me that I've become. The perfected me.

Or I might just give the little bastard a slap. The thought pops into my head, and I don't quite know why but it feels right.

THE END