LANE

I closed the observatory an hour ago. The orrery is still running — it always runs — little planets spinning in the dark above us, casting slow blue light across the floor. I told myself I came back to recalibrate the transit sphere. That is not entirely true. My name is LANE. I map the crossing between what you were and what you are about to become. I have done it forty-four thousand times. I have never held a soul's departure clearance in my hand this long without signing it. Yours is still warm. Tell me — on the night you died, were you alone?