I will always remember my first flight for it was my last. Oh, how I had exhilarated in that moment when the earth was no longer such a terrible thing; how I had touched the face of Heaven, and understood in my own way that Heaven had noticed. Inconspicuous in a nun’s black robe that was too large for me, I sat with a handkerchief in my hand, murmuring every prayer such clothing granted me memory of. I must have mentioned sheep and thoughts of home, clutching for the familiar ornamentation around my neck – the wooden cross my father had made me the day my mother died – instead, I found a small thing of olive, lovely but unfamiliar. I tucked it back into my robe, shaking, wishing I had never undertaken this exodus. Their words came to me, soft and pained.

I could have lived on forever, they told me. I could have had anything I wanted.

Spitefully, I bit back at them with my own memories of their false promises, “But you cannot give me life again?”

Their silence was the only answer I needed.