“Hello,” I whisper again into the silence of the wind, filling the arctic void with my very own music. My voice is rough, raw from the climb, but still sonorous and stark. I narrow my eyes, taking in the unadulterated brilliance of the egg-shaped Glory before me. I feel it pulsing through me, like a loud sound wave, humming and resonating through each bone. I love to feel my skeleton this way and I shudder, bowing down to my knee with both hands embedded in the ground. It’s like an x-ray you can feel.

I wait for permission. I don’t know what else to call it. The humming continues, and I wait, my muscles tensing despite their exhaustion. Then, in a moment of nothingness, where I see myself and I’m floating above my body, I see the Glory. She’s caught on the wind, like a sheer cloth buffeted on a clothesline, invisible and yet clearly present.

I’m completely naked, and swathed in the blanket of the wind, shimmering over my body like streams of crystalline water. The sun, still half-visible over the horizon, has gone out like a candle. Instead light radiates outward from the Glory all star-like. I’d be absolutely entranced if I hadn’t seen this all before, with different nuances.

Glories are glorious. Maybe they’re angels, maybe something more. I’ve never seen them hereafter. But Glories give gifts, if you can see them and unbind them. With experienced ease, I move forward, traipsing in the wind and kicking my legs against different patches of air, gliding on a few warm patches of air - thermals - to reach her location.

There are little streams of white wind coming off of her face, nesting around her eyes. It’s so difficult to understand the Glories, comprehend what keeps them chained to such remote regions. I’m within a foot of her and I stick out my hand, watching in quiet awe as the reality around her warps my skin, throwing waves of prismatic, rainbow-hued light over my arm and chest.

“Why are you here?” I murmur. I wrap my right hand around her jaw, running my thumb across her cheek and chin. “What are you waiting for?” Tears are streaming down my cheeks, white and wispy, drifting into the torrent of air around her. I feel like I’m her father, and she my child.

“Why are you so sad?”

And with that, reality cracks. You can actually see it. Pretend the world is made out of impossibly transparent glass, and then starts to hairline fracture. It’s so fast I can hardly register it’s happening before I’m back in my skin, staring at the golden Glory in my hands.

I have no idea how it got there, but it’s next to my face, and it’s wet. It smells of tears, of my own mixed with someone else’s. I inhale the scent of the Glory, savoring its otherworldliness, its abstract purity. Its warmth encompasses me, warming my aching soul after hours climbing. It’s the kind of warmth that starts at your heart, the kind that feels both physical and spiritual, like when all your dreams come true and you’re dumbstruck.

Similarly, when the Glory disappeared from my hands, it felt like everything was worthless. Like I was worthless. Like my purpose had fled. Like I had killed my own daughter.

Each Glory disappears in its own way after giving a gift. This one, over the course of milliseconds, exploded into a cloud of ash. A strong buffet of wind carried it all away in less time than the blink of an eye.

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And I wept, up there on that lonely edge of ice on the tip of the world, over a profound loss I could not name. And I lay down on this frozen throne, lost to the elements and civilization, basking in the sun and in the existence of such naive and precious sadness.

I search after Glories for their gifts, their endowments, like everyone else. It’s impossible to stay in my business without their constant improvements. But I looked up at the dark sky, tainted a rosy pink by a star left counterfeit in the wake of brilliance, and I wished with all my being to understand more than anything else just who the Glory was who left tear stains on my cheeks. I wanted to know who could make perfection cry, leave her chained to this frozen seat in forlorn seclusion.

I wiped my face with the backs of my gloves, the parts stitched with patches of embroidered leather in the likeness of a tortoise shell. I steeled my eyes, fixed my face with a blank expression, and descended the icy plateau. The omnipresent wind now seemed foreboding, pressing against my back with ominous, winter-chilled fingers.

I left as quickly as I could, shuffling the experience into the cluttered filesystem of my memories. I was wary of any unexpected changes as I made my exit. I remembered years back when I began to get feeling in my hair after an encounter with a Glory. Some gift. Incredibly useful, being able to feel with your hair, feeling the air around you with startling acuteness.

On the other hand, it’s been 3 years since I’ve had my hair cut and I’m not anticipating having it sheared again. It’s akin to having your fingers severed.

I first realized I had that gift when I snagged my hair on a tree branch and yelped. You feel through your hair, usually, as vibrations from the world around you travel down and contact your skin at the hair root. It’s completely different to feel with your hair, unnerving at first. Perhaps still unnerving now.

I made it out of the cat’s cradle of frosty canyons and padded to the end of the ice-crusted ground to my car. It’s black and inconspicuous, forgettable.

Until you get to the bright blue streaks across the sides, and the fact that it has an engine big enough to crush a cow. And then you have my car.

“Lana,” I called as I came closer. Her lights came on, blinking rapidly as though waking up from sleep, which she was, I guess. Old habits do die hard. I patted her hood and the door clicked open, swinging just wide enough for me to slide into the driver’s seat. Not that I would be doing much driving, but a car without a driver attracts due suspicion.

Us two are a well-oiled pair with familiar routines and mutual understanding. I keep her filled with gas, she drives me where I want to go, and usually that suffices. There’s not much you can do if you’re a car other than trekking across the globe. It’s a limited existence; I know sometimes Lana regrets it.

But like me, even when she’s cursing her own existence, I know she remembers what it was like as a shade drifting in the unseen plane. And I know that she doesn’t take anything for granted.

I leaned my head against the seat and curled up, my knees pressing to my chest. I didn’t feel like talking and the emotionless mask I kept from peeling off my face expressed this message well. Lana was silent as she drove back to society, her tires sure despite the black ice and broken ground.

If there was one gift I wanted but doubted I would ever find, it would be the gift of masking my emotions. No doubt I would be able to make a fortune in Vegas - or so I tell myself. But keeping a straight face can sometimes be so hard, especially when you want people to know how you feel. I want those around me to know what I’ve done, what I’m doing, and I want them to care so badly it causes my chest to ache a bit when I think about it. Heartbreak is real, you know; it feels like a downgraded heart attack, like your lungs are being pulled apart like wishbone ends. I feel a bit of heartbreak when I think about everyone around me, because I don’t think I can ever make them understand.