Hell is full, and heaven must've been getting crowded.

That's what they said, I think, up on the news, the first man back still delirious from his brush with death. Not brush, really; that's not the word. His intersection with it, there and back again, like an old faerie story but with ambulances and sirens and so many lights. He'd been a good man, I guess- he'd come to in the country morgue just as his wife had finally seen two lines on the test.

I can see an ambulance winding its way through the ant-size streets down there, the city alive with pinprick lights. I wonder if they drive just a little bit slower, nowadays, when you'll probably just continue your life, more or less, after a spell of death.

The wind whips around me, and I wonder if I'd wake up to a better life. Maybe things would pick up, and joy would be the order of the day. But I've done things. Bad things, some just... human, and maybe the world would flick back into light with the agonizing stab of a cancer growing in my gut.

"Hey, you."

Your voice is soft, and I turn my head to look, my cheeks going pink from more than just the cold when I see you. Silhouetted in the doorway, soft yellow light from the place behind the balcony giving your wind-ruffled hair almost a halo of pale gold. A cheap knit bathrobe pulled tight across your shoulders, but your smile the same as ever, and the glimpse of red lace beneath makes me smile.

Thoughts glimmer in my mind, and I know I should go back in there, to you. Enough watching the night; time to kiss and slide my hands beneath the robe, feeling your warmth seep back into my bones. Time to feel your shoulders, soft against my callused palms, for you to feel the bed rise up to greet you as I tell you it won't hurt a bit, I promise.

I look again, and only the sullen tungsten glow illuminates an empty bed through the doorway, the sound of sirens below giving their voice in reply.

Maybe...

Maybe, I think, and step forward, the wind taking me in its arms.