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The old man sloped along like a tortoise, and I followed him, and I watched him with my eyes half closed, like a daydream. His soul was full of dust, and on the crest of every hill we crossed, I watched waves of dirt blow off of him. We were both sweating, and it felt as though we were slowly being crushed between the red rocks and the warm sun. Every so often he looked back at me and smiled, his face splitting into a ridiculous grin, his few teeth exposed and eroding in the wind.
Dadum
Dadadum dum daDum.
I didn’t know if I was listening to his heart beat or mine. In one of his hands he was holding lilacs, in the other, a broken branch that he had fashioned into a cane. He was making his way towards the ocean, with me trailing behind him, a shadow, and I could almost smell the salt in the water, even if it was only some distant memory or a breath from my childhood. The heat pressing down on us was nauseating, making us more vulnerable and careless, inducing motion sickness; weeding us through time in slow motion. But our hearts beat on, despite the fact that I had no way of knowing if we were living or dead, if it was his heart beat or mine that I heard, or if I had been following him for so long that they beat hypnotically in unison.
Eventually, he turned to me and smiled.

“My name is Eduviges," he said. "Come with me. I’ve lost myself.”

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God is in the smoke. God is in the smoke and I watch it expand and soar out into the sky on the primordial breeze from the window of our bedroom. You don’t even know but I know what God is and I wonder if he knows what I am or if he even knows that he’s me.

You don’t know what you are.

I do know what I am. I’m just the same as you.

What am I?

You’re nothing but the sky and the sea and you don’t even know the half of it.

I’m just a girl.

You’re more than you think you are.

You’re less than you think you are.

Maybe you’re right.

Maybe I’m wrong. What if I am wrong? I haven’t slept in three days, if that means anything to you.

I’ve been bleeding for a month now. All because I scraped my palm when I was lifting myself out of the bathtub.

I’ve told you to be more careful. Is it bleeding right now?

It might be. I’ve lost track of it, to be honest. It’s all the same in the end. It’s just one more river that I can’t keep my eyes on. Your blood is your blood and your blood is my blood and I can’t keep track of any of it. What difference could there be in the blood?

There’s plenty of difference. I think I’m O for one. And I don’t think you are.

That’s fundamental. Have you forgotten the fundamentals?

To be honest I think I might have.

Is God in your blood?

Just as much as you are. Your blood is my blood and my blood is your blood. I live to be you.

Does that make this incest?

It very well might.

Then I want a divorce.

We aren’t even married yet. I don’t know what this is.

You haven’t got that figured out yet?

It hadn’t occurred to me. Why can’t you sleep?

Every time I lie down and shut my eyes I turn into a crocodile swimming in the water. And then it’s just swimming for hours until I open my eyes again and find that I haven’t gotten anywhere but more tired. I’m just a girl but at night when I’m sleeping I’m a crocodile.

I’ve noticed that. I’ve slept on the floor these past three nights because of that very reason.

What if it happens again tonight?

I’ll have to sleep on the floor again.

Will you watch the smoke?

If I’m awake.

Are we sinners?

Is that why you can’t sleep?

If I can’t sleep and you’ve been bleeding for a month then we’re sinners.

What have we done wrong?

Nothing. But every time I get happy I think I’m a sinner. And then I can’t sleep.

What makes you happy?

A lot of things. You make me happy.

Then you don’t need to worry. I don’t think you’re a sinner.

But you sleep on the floor. If I wasn’t a sinner you wouldn’t do that.

I try to give you space. Tonight I’ll stay by your side the entire night. You’ll see.

But why do you watch the smoke?