Tethered to You
by Anne Wilkins
When we meet again, you slam me with your hand, splattering my internal organs across your thigh. It was my fault really—the smell of you had been too strong, the animal instincts had kicked in, and I’d been sucking your blood like I couldn’t get enough. I left my mark on your soft skin, a raised bump for you to itch away at night. A sad little reminder of me.
The afterlife cruelly wrenched me away. I tried to cling to you, but I had no body to sustain me, and I was returned to the jumble of darkness and light that is all and nothing.
The waiting begins, again.
The wait for another chance to return.
Time passes and I drift along with the other souls. Not alive, nor dead. A collective nothingness of all that has been and has come before.
Memories grow dimmer here, but I whisper your name in my thoughts. Jessica. I hear your deep-bellied laugh, feel your hand in mine, and see the flecks of yellow in your irises.
“I’ll always be with you,” I promised, but our time together was cut too short. Heart attacks will do that.
A hole suddenly opens beneath me, and I’m gifted again a glimpse of our beautiful Earth. Souls tumble in the rush, a chance to be reborn. A new life awaits.
Jessica, I think as I fall with them. Jessica.
I pull my soul towards you.
A tether to ground me.
When I arrive I’m not sure what I am, except the first spark of life. I am no longer nothing. I now exist. I’m not alone either, and I jostle with other life in this crowded space. Each of us rubbing against each other, all of us growing. When I’m fully reborn I am one of many, all of us tiny spiderlings. Mother sits in her web looking proudly.
She does not look for long. You come with the vacuum. Your hair has grown, it’s now past your shoulders. It suits you. It’s my last thought as I’m swallowed by the vacuum nozzle.
My life is over, again.
And the waiting restarts.
Your name is more of a feeling now, a companion for me in the nothing and everything. Jessica.
Time passes. I wander. I drift. I simply… be.
Holes open and close around me, as I wait for another turn.
I’m rewarded with a hole opening below me. Eager souls press against me, looking for escape, another chance at life, and death. I move to see, but it’s not the familiar blue, white and green Earth. This time it’s a bleak and yellow spinning orb with two Suns. There’s no Jessica there. I scramble away, against the push.
The hole closes, and I sink with relief.
More time passes.
I return to you three more times.
As a puriri moth—eating the insides of a tree by your washing line. Sometimes hearing your voice caught by the wind and delivered to me. I spend years in the darkness, until finally I emerge as a mouthless moth. I live only three days, fluttering my emerald green wings at your bedroom window at night. You never even saw me.
As a small mouse—I creep into your house through an open ranch slider. You have a new husband, and children now. I hide under your daughter’s bed in the daytime, and at night I perch on the edge of your bed and watch you. The first grey strands are starting to appear in your hair. Tiny crow’s feet are at the corners of your eyes. But you’re still beautiful. The memories are dimmer, but they’re still there. Are you happy? I wonder. Do you miss me? Do you remember me, when I struggle to even remember myself?
In the morning your cat catches me. It was only a matter of time. I’m brought to your feet, and I die in your soft hands, your blue eyes upon me, my last breaths with you. Jessica. I hold onto the memory as I’m ripped back to the afterlife. I leave you with my body to bury.
Finally, I return to you as a sparrow. Your children have gone, your husband too. I find you at a small park feeding the birds, alone. Your hair is now grey, tied back in a bun. Your skin weathered and wrinkled with a scattering of age spots. Your hands are gripped by arthritis, but still you tear the bread and feed it to the pigeons at your feet.
“Hello, little one,” you say in a voice saturated with years.
I hop into your palm and eat the crumbs you feed me. It feels good to be held by you.
“You’re a brave one, aren’t you?”
Jessica.
“You… you remind me of—”
Your voice is gripped by pain. The crumbs fall from your hand. I stay with you till the end as the heart attack strips your life, and the afterlife steals you from me.
“Strange, that sparrow’s still there,” the paramedic says as they wheel your lifeless body away.
When I died I searched for you in the afterlife, but I couldn’t find you in the pool of souls. You were lost to me, again. Your name faded, and I drifted, letting the nothingness bathe me.
When the hole next opens below I do not have the tether of your name to guide me, and I fall recklessly to the Earth.
I’m born again. This time, a female child. It feels good to have lungs, and hands to clench. A single memory flutters in and out of my consciousness, someone important. I try to latch onto it, before it escapes. Jess—
But it’s gone.
I’m handed to my mother and nestle into her breast.
A small fly watches the birth from the corner, and remembers from a lifetime ago the warm feel of a bird in her palm.
_______________
Anne Wilkins is a sleep-deprived New Zealand teacher who writes in her spare time. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Clarkesworld, Apex Magazine, The Dark, and more. She has won the Fear 2025 Writers Battle, the June 2024 Elegant Literature Prize, the 2023 Autumn Writers Battle, and the 2023 Cambridge Autumn Festival Short Story Competition. Her love of writing is fueled by copious amounts of coffee, reading and hope. Anne is supported in her writing journey by her ever-patient husband, two wonderful daughters, and two feline writing assistants. www.annewilkinsauthor.com.