Where am I? Is this place possible, or even real? I don't know. All I know is that the stars linger, long enough for me to gaze in awe.

The stars linger, so I can't be falling that fast, can I? Then what's this unbearable vertigo? Where is it coming from? Did anything even exist before this? Did I have a life, before the stars reached like barbed wire, greedy and wanting?

I don't know how long I've been falling. Any of the many, many points of tantalizing light above me could have been the maw of this terrible well of void, but I'm sure I've been falling long enough that there's no way to tell.

How am I supposed to get back? I don't know if there IS a back to get to!

No, there was something before this. I know that for certain. There were people who loved me, and people who hated me, and people who relied on me, and so much to miss.

A memory as sudden and jarring as a bucket of water hits me, and I'm thrown into a past of gravity and clear, blue skies.

I was in the trampoline with my sibling, my oldest friend. Up, down, up, down, always an end to the descent, only to send me flying again.

I'm in the kitchen, frantically packing a large insulated bag with my mother. Picnic blanket; chicken salad (with too much mustard courtesy of my short attention span); sparkling apple cider; and a notebook, with brightly colored markers for drawing. She kisses my cheek, teasing me about my "picnic date". I blush, swatting good-naturedly, then bolt through the door. Thump, thump, thump, as my stomach is infested with butterflies, not unwelcome.

It's 7:00 am. I haven't slept all night. Eventually, I rise like a corpse and make breakfast: a bowl of cereal.

I sit outside to eat, watching my dog nose through the grass. I listen to the birds and the traffic, and I'm peacefully alone, waiting for my loved ones while still thankful for the quiet.

I'm 12 again, jogging with my dad next to a large canal. I slow and stop at a detour, deciding to surprise my dad and get to the end first. But he's nowhere to be found when I emerge.

He's not anywhere for the next half-hour I search, listlessly running to and fro. Adrenaline kicks me like a cruel dog-fighter, urging me to "just get up, you have to keep going".

 Almost an hour later, as the sun smoulders in the trees, I find him. We hug and we cry, and he calls the family to say I'm safe, and they cry, and I hug him tight enough to know I'll never lose him again.

I'm young, my age the fuzziest part of a broken memory. I see a man, my biological father, smiling with his sun-baked skin. His eyes crinkle at the edges, sad but genuine. His voice is crackled, too, like I'm hearing him through an old radio set.

I smile as he speaks words lost to grief and repression and time and age.

And I cry, because this wasn't real.

I'm even younger. It's Halloween, and he's still a vital piece of my life. My face hurts from smiling as he calls me "Zee Bones", crackling-radio voice overflowing with love and warmth.

I'm still small. Small enough -- and scared enough -- that this is the one I only know through a keyhole to my own memory.

I'm sitting on top of a chest of drawers in my room, a hallway away from shouting voices and anger. Static, then a fall just like this one, as though molasses was replacing my bone marrow. I'm standing on the floor now, and my sibling is standing in front of me. He is as solemn as a young, scared rabbit in a predator's jaws. They say we need to leave, so we do.

Mother moves on, and we move with her.

I'm 11 -- or 12, perhaps, -- and immature. I'm desperate too, desperate enough for a crumb of control (over my identity, over my life,) to speak to a man that we declared we had moved on from. My sibling, my oldest friend, yells. My protector, my friend, screams. Then, and only then, do I learn truths that complete my jigsaw puzzle of a childhood.

Then, and only then, do I cry.

'how ironic', is the only thing my fear-addled mind can muster.

How ironic, for me to barely have enough of a life to flash through. Or rather, barely enough intact memory to see my life through.

How ironic that the man I least remembered, the one I vehemently denounced, took up half of my mind. How ironic that a past I made peace with, that I moved from, is all I can think about as I end.

The stars are blinking out, slowly but surely. 'where are they going,' I wonder, 'that's more important than their homes? Maybe they were stuck here, and now with me they can finally escape. I'm the escape plan of a bunch of ungrateful stars.'

A dead chuckle escapes my lips as I realize that is not them disappearing, but me. I'm finally dying. Fading from space and thought.

"Goodbye, then," I whisper to the now empty air. My limbs feel numb, still so slow in their nests against my torso.

Then, and only then, do I cry.