Aidan San Francisco — 1985 Beautiful and Strange

Aidan awakes beside Lisa. Her hair is gold for a single instant, before fading to ash. In the morning light, her charred body lies on Aidan’s azure cover.

How odd, he thinks, to have a piece of sky on his bed. Only last week, the cover had appeared to him a pale grey, lighter than the bay, darker than the sun. Now it is brilliant as the heavens, expansive as space, its very vibrancy making the greyness of Lisa’s body starker.

In his mind, Aidan can see her pearl skin glowing with an inner fire. He can smell her gardenia scent, unpolluted by the fragrance of flesh. He can feel the connection that linked them, as strong as love, as powerful as desire, when he looked into her pale luminous eyes. Now she is gone. Only her crystal teeth remain.