Koanos t1_j9hzy8a wrote on February 22, 2023 at 2:42 AM

A cold winter's breeze tickled my nose, my teeth chatter for a moment before I finally make it to their... What the human's call their "final resting place."

I take a seat across from their stone marker. The howling wind my only company.

My mind wanders back to that day, I was getting the coffee ready for you, french vanilla with a dash of caramel, your favorite. I teased you about a similar caffeinated beverage I had three generations ago, told you that I'd like to take you there sometime. We kissed and I said "I love you" for the last time.

It all happened so fast. One moment you were there the next, I'm being visited by the authorities regarding your sudden demise. At first, I didn't quite get it. It wasn't like my ex who left me then we awkwardly met each other a few generations down the line. It wasn't like reuniting in a completely different body and having to rearrange the furniture because one of us was two feet shorter all of a sudden. It was... Completely new to me. My parents had warned me about the dangers of cross-species relationships, I brushed them off because I thought they didn't believe in us, but I'm starting to understand what they meant wasn't in the short term but the long-term.

Maybe... Maybe in the back of my mind, I didn't want to believe it either. I thought we would grow old together or I'd die a couple times first and we'd to file new paperwork or something like that. Now... Now you're here and I'm... I'm still around. I'm still alive and breathing. Walking. Talking. Our species doesn't have death in the same way yours does. When we die, we kind of... "Stick around" for a lack of a better term until our new body is ready. Maybe that's why I started getting these calls from your family about grief counseling and them checking in if I'm alright, if I'm fine...

I'm not fine. It's not okay without you. Coffee hasn't tasted the same. Our home is somewhat of a wreck. I'm already on my fifth generation since you passed on to wherever you might be now...

I... I miss you. I would want nothing more than to have you back. How could you human's go on about life when you have but one life to live? Is this how you felt when your grandmother died? I know you didn't want to talk about it so I didn't pry. Sometimes, I wonder if I could be with you in this "afterlife" your species keeps preaching on about but...

I know it would be a betrayal of everything we worked for, everything you meant to me, to be given the ability to keep going when you could not and squander it.

I'm... I'm going to see Dr. Mina next week. She's a counselor experienced with this kind of stuff.

But... But it's so hard... It's the first time, the first time in my countless lives, that I have to go through something like this.

And despite all the pain, if I had to go back to the day we first met at aquarium in front of the jellyfish, knowing exactly what would happen, I would say "Yes" in a heartbeat.

Because as much pain as I am in now, I finally appreciate a life well-lived.