The sun, high in the hot August afternoon, sent short shadows across the neatly trimmed grass. A small clump of people huddled in a semicircle, close but not touching. The coffin, in the center, sat on a platform covering the empty hole.
Dylan placed a rose on the black lacquer surface, and stepped back. A moment, frozen in time and space.
A hand clutched his shoulder. Firm grip, meant as reassurance. He turned. Ross nodded to him, mouth a thin line.
"She was a good woman," Ross whispered.
Dylan nodded. The minister was speaking, but he didn't care about the words, even though the rest of the group strained forward.
"She would have found this silly," Dylan said, and then stopped. Ross's expression had changed from one of sympathy to something else--confusion? Disapproval? Dylan didn't know, and didn't really want to find out. Outside he was calm. Inside he felt fragile, as if his entire body was formed of the thinnest crystal. One wrong look, a movement, a shadow on the grass, would shatter him into a thousand pieces.
A thousand pieces. Shards, scattered on the kitchen floor. Geneva, crouched over them, like a cat about to pounce. Look, Dylan, she said. To us, a glass shattered forever. But to the universe, possibilities. A thousand possibilities.
He stared at the black box. He could picture Geneva inside as she had looked the night before: black hair cascading on the satin; skin too white; eyes closed in imitation sleep. Geneva had never been so still.
He wondered what she would say if she stood beside him, her hand light on his arm, the summer sun kissing her hair.
For just a moment, trapped in space and time.
)
A love story as well as a science fiction story, 'Without End' is about one man's search to find his dead wife, using her own research in physics and the powers of the mind.
