Dreams had never been as good as life when I was

awake, in those months. I wandered through every

moment without care for anything else than my time

with my Sharon 1-323. She was my life.

       We did everything together. She would help me do my

work with lighting, then I would help her do her work cleaning

and filing petitions for repair. Together we could get done our

tasks faster than one alone. During free time we would spend

time walking together, visiting others, in bed together. I had

never been so happy. Neither had she.

       Days became weeks became months. We took no

notice. The sky would become light, it would darken, we

didn’t count or care.

        My mind was lost whenever I saw her face, especially

that smile she gave only me. The shape of her body was a song

in my eyes luring me from worry or care.

       “Your eyes have no more red,” Sharon said one time,

        “They are now blue. You are so strange.”

        “Tell me your preference: red or blue,” I pressed.

        She thought a few moments, her head tilting in thought,

brown locks of curled hair drifting lightly across her face.

        “Hmm,” Sharon replied, “Blue. I think blue is

peaceful. Your red eyes were always nice: I met you when you

were red. They had purpose in the world, I believe. Blue has

purpose in my arms, I know.”

        We held each other. I gripped her tighter and tighter in

appreciation. Sharon, this beautiful creature I was gifted with,

was never told of my past or the wrong I was created to do,

but she was so clever and perceptive that she understood the

difference between my two sides of life. Sharon was right: I

was now only of purpose within her influence.

         I felt like her toy. The young woman was effortlessly

able to do anything with me. She knew everything about me

without knowing anything about me. There was some magic

within her that was made to be with me.

         I was happy.

        “You are mine,” she told me once a day as she grabbed

me and refused to let go as she tried to squeeze me as tight as

possible.

         Again, she was right without actually knowing it. She

just knew it. She always knew it. That was one of God’s

mysteries within the world.

         All she wanted was a child. She prayed and hoped

and cried out for a child. We tried constantly. It was almost

everything we did for those months.

         I told her that birth is rare and only granted by God.

Sharon understood, but she wanted to experience it. Even if

she couldn’t have what she desired, she endeavored to keep

trying with me until the possibility might become a reality.

And then one day she told me astonishing news.

        “I will give life to a new citizen,” she said shyly,

standing in the doorway to the bathroom as she emerged into

the living space of our pair-bond apartment.

        My surprise was overflowing with happiness for her,

for us. We both cherished the gift of life we were allowed to

make.

        “God didn’t visit us to bless us with a child,” I told her.

        “He doesn’t do so,” Sharon smiled, “not these days, not

so often.”

        I held my ear to her abdomen.

       “I don’t think you will hear anything yet,” she told me

as she petted my head, “it is too young.”

         “Then I want to hear you,” my reply was honest.

        “We made life.”

       “Tell me the weeks before it is taken!”

         “Not sure,” she gently purred, “ but it is small.

God comes in the night to take children on the ninth week.

Usually.”

        “Nine weeks is a long way to go. You will be fat!”

        “No! It is less than nine weeks to go. I had our child

for maybe four weeks, now. Maybe less.”

        “I hope you are happy.”

        “These are the best days of my life,” Sharon told me,

“my life hasn’t stopped being better since I met you.”

        “I am glad you bumped into me.”

        “Yes, you would never have had courage to meet me,

I know. I knew it was my duty to take you from the world

and make you my man,” she confessed, “I still think about the

reasons you would be so afraid of me. You have always been

strange.

        That’s why you have always been special to me. You

are strange. You aren’t like everyone else I met. You are you.

I didn’t want them, I waited for you: someone you. You are

you. No one else is you. So you were the one I was made for.”

         My response was to laugh. She was rambling. I

enjoyed when she tried to express herself, only to find words

too confusing for what she tried to say. Inside me, I knew what

she meant.

       Life was a gift.

        Five or six weeks later I awoke in the night to find my

Sharon gone. She was probably in the bathroom. I sluggishly

rose and went to find her. I missed her.

        Entering the bathroom, the lights were on. She had

been in there. She wasn’t in there anymore: her body was

lifeless. It was floating under water in the filled bathtub, eyes

wide with fear.