I died; and having died, my eyes and ears and skin all stopped. And I felt myself falling through my body, through the floor, through the earth and rock, and it was dark and I could feel nothing at all;
And then there was a grey light around me, and I found myself floating above a grey shore by a sea; and the waters of the sea were black, and things moved on them, things that had sails but were not boats.
And there were others around me, floating over the grey sand, and the winds that blew touched us, and sometimes blew one or the other over the dark water.
And the things with sails came to those blown people, and took them up, and swam out into the black sea, until they disappeared into the distance; and the rest of us were afraid, for we had no knowledge of where they went, and no way that we could resist the wind.
And I blew hither and thither, over the grey sand, and watched the wisp-souls that were all left of those who were once alive be blown out to the things with sails, out on the sea.
And the time passed, and the more I drifted, the more I was afraid, for the moment would surely come when I, too, was blown out on to that sea.
And the time passed, and the dead came by the thousands, and they went to the sea, and still I lingered, for I found a rock on the beach, and hid behind it, where the wind might not, for a while, find me.
And the time passed, and perhaps suns burnt out and galaxies turned and merged; and yet I still hid behind that rock. And the winds blew and hissed and roared, but they did not touch me.
But one day the wind wore away the rock. And it split and broke away, and in a trice the wind, that had waited so long, plucked me up in its claws and flung me over the ocean; and a thing with a sail rose up and caught me. And it swam away over the black sea.
And I looked back, and the grey land was a thin line behind me, nothing more. And I looked where the thing with the sail was taking me.
Far away, across the black water, was a land of brown and green. And stars shone in a jewelled sky above that approaching shore.
