The second time he woke up, he was alone.

Katrina had been dead for four years; yet, he expected her to be there. The rough blankets still covered his feet, a sharp something still poked his head; but no Katrina.

He smiled, frowned. His head was bleeding.

"There's no way I'll live that long."

"Why not? Sad people live a long time, when they want to, seems like."

"What?"

The moon started sinking, unnoticed.

"Do you ever feel invisible?" Kip asked.

"No. I can always see myself. How could I be invisible?" The corners of her mouth danced upward. Lips met, once, twice, parted, three times.

"Do you think up these answers beforehand?"

"Do you think up these questions beforehand?"

Nervous giggle.

"You know what your last words will be?"

"I don't. And neither do you, chick."

"Yes, I do."

Pause, cue lips, once, twice, pause, nervous giggle.

"Your last words'll be, 'Am I invisible, yet?'"

Something rustled beyond the fence. A family of rabbits had bedded down peacefully for the night. They'd been found by something, and so they rustled.

"And the answer'll be, 'No.'"

He found that hard to believe, but then he smelled the grass, the breeze, the skin; felt the touch, the lips, the leaves; heard the rustling, the breathing, the soft disconnection; saw the bulb, saw the dirt, saw the spaces in between the atoms; tasted her, only her, forever her; forgot.

Kip Pilgrim never remembered what she'd said until the day he turned 106.

The moon was low in the sky, a big, white bulb; flowers would sprout from it, if it would just plant itself in the stars.

But it stayed above stars, below stars, in front of stars. It was the greatest star.

A gentle hand brushed Kip's face. Falling leaves from the tree above them glanced off his arm, one landed in her hair; picked it out, kissed her, lay back against the trunk; felt the bark against his back, felt the hand brush his face, felt the wind pull at this shirt; smelled the cut grass from beyond the neighbor's fence, smelled her skin, inches away, smelled her sweet skin, millimeters away, touching him.

Katrina stared him right in the face.

"Right in the face, Kip," she'd say whenever she wanted his attention. She already had his attention.

"You've got the saddest eyebrows I have ever seen," she said. She raised her own. "You'll live to be 106 years old. You know that?"

The saddest eyebrows met, frowned in earnest confusion.

"And you weird me out more than anyone I've ever seen," he said.

"That's a silly thing to say. Do you see me weirding you out?"

Met again. "I guess not."

Her hair brushed against his shoulder. He could smell it, carried on the breeze with the grass clippings. It mixed pleasantly. He sighed.

At one point, all the hope had drained out of his eyes.

It was like watching a bird die.

At least, Katrina felt that way.

She'd driven home from work, alone. On the way, she ran over a bird; one of those that look the same as all the others, brown, white, something, can't remember; one of those that never ranks high in the birdwatcher's book; one of those that's never thought important.

As the brakes pinched and the car slid to a stop and Katrina bolted from the car and the sky was blue; why, that bird had never been more important in his life.

There was nothing she could do. It twitched.

There was no blood. It was like a crumpled piece of newspaper. A sick, sad, crumpled piece of newspaper.

She thought about trying to unfold him, but tasted bile at the thought. A bird's bones are hollow. It would be like bending broken straws.

So she watched it die. It didn't take long. The twitching stopped, it relaxed, looked more like a dead bird, less like newspaper.

She got in the car, drove home, opened her veins, for the bird, for Kip.

He felt before he saw.

Something smooth brushed his lips, something rough covered his feet, something sharp poked his head.

And kept poking.

He opened his eyes.

The smooth was Katrina, eyes wet, squeezed.

The rough was the blanket. It smelled like cheap lotion.

The sharp was a wound under a bandage on his head.

Fell, hit it on a mule, a pool, something, somewhere. Katrina looked very pretty. Her face was flushed, almost flustered, almost blushed. She'd received a blood transfusion. Kip figured it was the light, though he'd never seen anyone so pretty in fluorescent.

She sure is pretty.

A nurse glided by.

"Hi."

Dry lips cracked open. "Hi."

"Thanks."

Dry lips cracked smile. "Yeah."

"I love you."

Dry lips cracked shut for an unnoticed moment. Eyes flicked to arms, to hands, to arms, to eyes.

Do I?

"Love you."

When Kip came to, he was in a bed with scratchy sheets.

Both times.

This wasn't the first time around. They'd been together twice before the long one. The current one.

Both times, Kip had unceremoniously ended the relationship. The first time, he'd been honest, and they didn't speak to each other for months. The second time, Katrina called him first. He didn't believe her when she said she was sorry, but he was so happy to hear her voice again, so happy to imagine her, in her room, on the phone again, that he let go what suspicions he had.

Test trial number two lasted a short week; then he lied, and broke it off more abruptly than even he thought he could.

His heart was entirely intact, which surprised him.

The third time was a mistake. A dreadful, strange, exotic mistake.

Kip blamed Mexican food. Katrina blamed Prozac.

Kip had never fainted at the sight of blood before.

And yet, when Katrina's veins lay open before him, it was all he could do to keep from swooning long enough to quickly drag her into the bathroom and wrap her arms in towels.

He hit her head on the toilet as he was pulling her in. A dark bump started to grow on her smooth forehead.

He finished wrapping her up, and ran into the kitchen. After desperately grabbing the phone from the wall and ejecting a short sentence or two, he fainted, lights out before he hit the cedar floor.

"We're going to have to ask you to leave, now."

"Erm," Kip said.

Mount Rushmore looked at him distastefully. His throat constricted more, and his strangled erm just became a strangle.

His head hit the floor with an exceedingly dull thud. The bluebirds finished cleaning the bones.

"Mr. Pilgrim, your request is formally denied."

At that very moment, something in Kip's brain broke. The tiny little hammer he'd been using to hit the black woman's eyes exploded into fourteen hundred bluebirds, and they grabbed bits of him in their sharp mouths, tearing, ripping, peeling back layer after layer.

It was natural that the bluebirds wanted to eat Kip alive. He'd done nothing to save them. It felt like they were swarming down his throat, but he wasn't quite sure. They'd pecked out his eyes, by then, and his body felt like it was on fire. The choking sensation was practically a relief.