Tommy. The bartender. The sweet card he got for me. We listen to the moonlight together, sip each from a flask, hands clasped in wonder this night. This moment. This kiss. Cut-hay scent, worked meadow and warm skin.

Tonight is my last. Last times come before you wish they would, and time curves only forward. I can visit; I cannot stay.

I tally the count; seconds, minutes, years. His fingers pull from me as I enter coordinates, leaving warm pads on my cheek. Will my warmth remain when I depart?

What does it look like for you when I go, is it a fading out? Am I thin now, insubstantial and simultaneous as you are to me, a map of us smeared in probability?

Can you still hear me?

A horn sounds out on the street. I breathe in today, feel the chill from the wind of God’s dice as they tumbled us so far apart, a century in an instant. Your lips still taste on mine.

You can’t hear me now. Goodbye Tom. I’ll be back one day.

Chris Grebe grew up in the shadow of the Colorado Rocky Mountains and began publishing fiction and journalism as a teenager. His fiction works have appeared in The Phoenix literary magazine and Dark Horses magazine, among others. Chris was an honorarium reader at the F.R.A.M.E. Literary Salon in Boulder, Colorado. Reach him here.