In the middle of an empty road, Maria lay panting in a pool of her own blood. She held her eyes tightly shut, as if that might quiet the pain in her left side. The pavement was rough on her palms; her jeans were torn and her knees scabbed.
            The car hadn’t stopped; why hadn’t it stopped? And why had she frozen, letting the blinding white headlights get closer and closer until they swallowed her up?
            Her chest felt tight. Blood dripped from her mouth. Her arm hung limp. She couldn’t stand. Crickets chirped. The sky looked like someone had splattered silver on a black canvas, the stars a million globs of paint. The sunflower field, just out of reach, sat golden and dark and silent, unaffected by what it had just witnessed.
            Maria winced as two bright lights tore her from the steady rhythm of her breath. She briefly wondered if the red van had returned. When she realized it had not, that what she was really seeing were the headlights of a white, mud-splattered pick-up truck, she felt a surge of hope. The truck stopped and a man poked his head out of the driver’s seat window. It was hard to distinguish his features in the dim light. All Maria could see was that he was pale and wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. She recognized him, and her breath left her body.
            Maria had never seen him before, but she knew who this man was. She felt the air go cold. Anyone would have known who he was; the calm of winter after a nuclear blast, a lilting breeze blowing dandelion seeds away. He wasn’t here to help.
            “Need a lift?” he asked.
            Whatever part of her was still alive begged Maria to stay put, to not get into the truck. But more than half of her was already being drawn towards the man, like she was a moth helpless before a flame. It felt like the logical next step. It felt right.
            Wasn’t she hurt? Wasn’t she tired?
            But she shook her head.
            The man frowned. “It is up to you. But staying like this, in-between, I don’t recommend it. If you’re trying to stay alive, it’s too late for that now. You don’t even need to breathe anymore. You’re just doing it out of habit.”
            He was right. She was still breathing, but inhaling nothing, exhaling nothing.
            “I can’t stand,” Maria argued.
            “Sure, you can,” he said gently. “You’re not in your body anymore, Maria.”
            Maria looked down at her hands. They were still hers but no longer bloodied. The pain that had been coursing through her was fading fast. To her right lay her own body, crumpled and broken.
            Whoever she was seemed to fade into starlight. Maria had no body; she was nobody. Something heartbreaking and liberating at the same time.
            Pushing herself up off the road, Maria climbed into the truck without a word. She looked over her shoulder to see the tiny shadows of flies buzzing about her corpse and was sick to a stomach she no longer really had.
            The pick-up truck wasn’t any cleaner on the inside. It smelled like chewing tobacco, disinfectant, saltwater, and smoke. Maria buckled herself in. She hardly felt the leather seat when she dug her fingers into its side.
            Turning the weathered steering wheel, the man threw his arm over the top of his seat, checking his mirrors as he went back the way he came. Maria tried to study his profile but was still unable to see him clearly.
            As they drove slowly down the road, Maria watched the field of sunflowers. That’s where she had been headed. She had crossed this road at night countless times before. It felt relatively safe to do, this far out in the country, even after 3AM. Not like at home in Queens, where her parents had impressed the dangers of night upon Maria and her sister incessantly, to the point that she and Christine had been terrified of the dark, thinking it only ever held kidnappings and murders. Maria liked nights in the country. Only an occasional vehicle interrupting barred owls’ hoots and foxes’ yips. Maria had never imagined she would die out here, that anything bad could happen here, among moon-lit sunflowers.
            “Where are we going?” Maria asked the man. Heaven, she wondered. Hell? Had she done enough in twenty-two years to warrant an invitation to either?
            “Somewhere far,” he replied, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “Well, not too far, when you’re with me.”
            The sunflowers disappeared. They were driving through a forest, down winding roads dappled with afternoon sun. They were on a sharp-edged mountain road, steep drops to their left. Maria didn’t try to understand how they had gotten there. She flicked down the window and stuck out her hand, brushing her fingers against the rock face. Maria felt it as a faraway sensation, there but not there, as if something were between her and it. She was still in-between, she remembered. Breathing out of a practical habit.
            Now they were in another forest, full of snow-heavy, sagging trees, pines and firs. Maria rolled up the window to keep out a chill she couldn’t feel. Another practical habit.
            “We’re nearly there,” said the man. She looked at him, and even though it was snow-bright outside, she still couldn’t quite see his face. The man eased his foot onto the break, and they slowed to a stop.
            They were parked outside of a playground. It was a white afternoon, the sky thick with clouds, as if the snow from moments ago had floated up, stuck in the sky. The playground was covered in wood chips, the grass surrounding its edges sparse under the shade of trees. Children were gathered around a game of jump rope, while others hung on monkey bars or swung on swings. Some were running around wildly in a frenzied game of tag.
            A little girl in an old-fashioned dress sat on the edge of the enclosure. No one in the playground seemed to notice her. But Maria did. With an instinct she didn’t know she had, Maria knew that she was like this little girl, that they were the same.
            “Help her,” said the man.
            “With what?”
            He said nothing, merely nodded his head towards the playground with a small smile.
            Maria stared at her hands again. They were there, but lifeless, with no indication that they had once held blood or ligaments or bone. But they were all she had left of herself. She had to do something, anything, with what she had left.
           “Okay.” Maria opened the truck door. “I’ll do my best.”
            Pale sunlight blinded her when she stepped outside and Maria put a hand above her eyes as she walked towards the little girl.
            “Hello.”
            The little girl did not look up.
            Maria sat down next to her on the black plastic edge of the playground.
            “My name is Maria Perez. What’s yours?”
            The little girl turned around then, her brow furrowed. “You can see me?” She blinked at Maria with watery blue eyes.
           “Yeah. I’m like you. I’m…” Maria searched for something that wouldn’t frighten her too much. “In-between.”
            “Oh. I thought I was a ghost.” The little girl returned her gaze to the children at play. “My name is Betty Virginia O’Reilly.”
            “Hi, Betty Virginia, it’s nice to meet you.” Maria glanced back at the pick-up truck. She could see his outline. He was watching them.
            Betty Virginia sighed, her eyes fixed on the swings.
            “Do you want to play with them?” Maria asked.
            “Yes. But they can’t see me.” Betty Virginia looked up, squinting at Maria. “It isn’t fair.”
            “No, it’s not. When I was little, all of the other kids thought I was weird, or shy, or something. I don’t know. They just didn’t like me. I always ate lunch alone. I used to walk around at recess by myself. So, I get it.” Why, Maria wondered, did her breath hitch on the last word? What was there left to be sad about, now that everything had ended?
            “Being alone makes me cry a lot,” said Betty Virginia.
            “Yeah,” said Maria. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I understand.”
            Betty Virginia brightened. “If you understand, and you can see me, you could play with me.”
            Was that all he meant for her to do? “Okay,” said Maria slowly. “Yeah. I can play with you.”
            Betty Virginia grinned, showing a missing front tooth that would never be replaced. She danced towards the swings.
            Even though they couldn’t see her, the other children grew tense, as if by some instinct they couldn’t name. They whispered among themselves as Maria joined Betty Virginia, before unanimously dispersing, giggling nervously, chatting casually.
            This did not dissuade Betty Virginia. She promptly sat on the swing, smoothed her skirt, and smiled over her shoulder at Maria. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, her smile melted away like snow.
            “Wait. I’m scared.”
            “It’s okay,” said Maria, “to be scared. Just as long as it doesn’t stop you.”
            She hoped that had been the right thing to say. It was one of the things Maria had told herself when she moved away from home, into a world she knew only from daydreams.
            Maria’s words seemed to work, because even though Betty Virginia’s hands were shaking, she pressed her lips together firmly. “I’m ready.”
            Maria pushed her and Betty Virginia clung to the swing’s chain-link handles as she soared into the air. Then she laughed as if she couldn’t help it. She bubbled with happiness, with pure abandon, as she flew.
            “Kick your feet out when you go up,” said Maria. “You’ll go higher.”
            Betty Virginia listened and kicked out her little legs as far as they would go. Up she went.
            Maria smiled. It must have been at least a little fun, to be a kid forever. Though it wouldn’t have been for her. Childhood had been difficult, in the too loud city, in the too busy world. It had been fine for Christine; Maria had always been the one their parents worried about. She wondered if they did still. Maria hadn’t seen them in years, not since she had graduated and moved as far from New York as she could, towards fields of green and yellow. Her parents did call sometimes. Maria usually answered, so they would know she was okay.
            I won’t be able to answer ever again, she realized.
            Maria backed away, as Betty Virginia continued to propel herself upwards. The other children stared at the swing, which to them, Maria assumed, was going up and down without reason. A little girl pointed and screamed. Her mother strode from a park bench and scooped her up when she began to bawl. The swing creaked with every swoop of Betty Virginia’s legs, and more parents grabbed their children’s hands, muttering about the wind, a storm that must have been coming, despite the serene sky.
            Maria sat down at the end of a slide. She wrapped her arms around herself. She tried not to, but she imagined her funeral; her father failing to hold back sobs, her mother gripping Christine’s hand, Christine staring blankly as her sister was lowered into a hole in the earth.
            It’s okay to be scared, Maria told herself. But she wasn’t scared. She was sad. There were just no tears left in her body. No body. Heartbreaking and liberating at the same time.
            Maria felt a hand on her insubstantial shoulder, and she turned around to see him.
            “Time to go,” he said.
            “What was the point of all that?”
He smiled and gave no answer. Maria didn’t know why she had thought he would.
He led the way back to his pick-up truck, and Maria wished he would walk a little more slowly, to match the pace of her thoughts, muddied and measured.
            “Wait.” Maria turned around, for just a moment, to see that the swing was still, and Betty Virginia was gone.
            Once she and the man were flying across the highway again, Maria turned to him. “You care.”
            “Of course.” He draped his arm over the steering wheel, putting on his turn signal. “Maybe I shouldn’t. But I can’t help it. My existence is one of service.” He waved a bone-white hand, as if grasping for meaning. “At least, it’s less lonely, when I think about it like that.”
            They turned left, entering a desert that hadn’t been there before. The road was invisible, coated with a thick layer of sand. They parked in what could have been the center of an hourglass. Wind blew grains of sand against the pick-up truck windows. It was night again, and the moon hung in a crescent, like the curve of a scythe.
            Maria sucked her cheek, staring ahead, unsure where the sky ended and the earth began when it was this late. “Whenever I was unhappy, I had this thought that would always make me feel better. It was that tomorrow might be better than today. I might see a pretty sunflower or a nice oak leaf. I might paint or draw or write. I might call my mom or my sister. I might live well, tomorrow.” Maria’s lip trembled, and she bit it, but could not draw blood. “Only, there are no more tomorrows, are there?”
            Quietly, he said, “You can stay in-between, if you need to. You do get a choice.”
            “No. I don’t want that. I just want…”
            I want more time, she thought. I want more tomorrows.
            “Why did you take me to see Betty Virginia? I couldn’t help her. All I did was push her on the swings.”
            “Isn’t that enough?” he asked. “She got on the swings. She hasn’t done that before, not in a hundred years of wanting to.” He rubbed his forehead. “It’s hard to move on. Harder when life doesn’t give you a fair shot. I try to make eternity a little less grim, for all of us.” He turned to Maria, smiling sadly.
            Maria took a shaky breath. From behind his sunglasses, she could feel something cold and warm, cruel and kind. She was scared. But that wouldn’t stop her.
            “I’m ready,” Maria whispered.
            He removed his sunglasses, to reveal two sunken holes, filled with stars.
            Maria stared at Death and he stared back.
            “Maria Perez,” he said. “Take a deep breath.”
            He turned on the pick-up truck’s headlights. The road ahead was still indiscernible, but the sky was clear, freckled with stars. Maria breathed, in and out, inhaling the world, exhaling her self, returning it to the universe. She smiled; she was flying and falling all at once, seated and soaring through the sky.
            They drove on, until there was nothing left to see and nothing left to be. They drove on, until Maria was no longer breath, but air.

Kaitlyn Connors is a New York-based writer and a recent graduate of Smith College. More of her work can be found at http://www.thesunsetowl.com.