Ancestor by Evangeline Giaconia
My foot sinks down into stars, then ash, then stars again. The wet ground swirls, my toe-prints leave solar-system-whorls, one-armed spiral galaxies. The ash smells like rotten eggs and then the frigid burn of space.
I move toward a dark purple horizon, night-time colors in the daytime. Rotten snowflakes tip my eyelashes, and my footsteps stretch back to a mountain burbling up a sun. My toes sink in and squelch out. In, out. In, out. I walk on.
Someone walks next to me.
Her curious eyes meet mine from hip level. Dark as midnight, wrinkled with laugh lines. Her mouth makes mine want to smile, so I do. Her skin is leathery and furred, her shoulders hunch high, her long fingers curve in.
But we walk together. Our toes and arches and heels match. The galaxy of her tiny footprint pulses out to meet mine.
Where are you going? I ask her.
The same place you are.
Oh. Forward?
Always.
The purple of the horizon reaches out toward us. Long slow rivers like veins.
Funny, I say.
Isn’t it?
Do you know any good jokes?
She considers. The breeze picks up for a moment, the ash goes horizontal.
What makes more noise than a dinosaur?
What?
Two dinosaurs.
I laugh, but can’t hear myself. Can’t hear anything at all, as we walk through the ash toward the distant pink horizon. But I laugh anyway, and so does she. Her protruding teeth make her laugh feel bigger.
How is your life? she asks. Do you live the same?
Not the same. I don’t know.
The sky is almost upon us. An inexorable wine-colored push.
Do you eat? Sleep? Love? Dream?
Yes.
Not so different where it matters. She sounds relieved.
The horizon is here. Her eyes are stars flung into the sky.
Evangeline Giaconia is a queer writer, artist, and world traveler. Her writing is driven by her love for queerness, myth, and social transformation. She is on Twitter and Instagram.