V. H. King's Ink

When there is only a strip of blood left in the sky, Zinje descends. It only happens every three moons, and each time there is a whole affair made of it. Dancing the first night, prayers the second. Third sunrise is my favorite, though. The planet’s turning aligns with ours, and all the sky is sparkle and glitter. I wonder if it looks the same there as it does from here.

I imagine Zinje to be a misty planet, full of waterfalls and pine forests. Lasa flowers blooming on diamond-shaped leaves every midday; toadettes sunning their palm-sized bodies under the petals. Afi says I am too much in my own world, always imagining what can’t be.

“But it’s a good thing,” he says right after his scolding. “We will need you, when you wake.”

I don’t quite know what to make of this.