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The initial separation was the hardest. The tearing away from flesh, bone, and old habits. A corrosion of loss clotted in his still unformed wings. Somewhere a woman's kiss lingered in his most ghostly remains of memory. It smelled of gardenia. He could remember that much. Remember that much of his life. He knew there would be things like this he would always remember. He knew that he could never die of forgetting.

As he rose, he twisted slightly in the wind. Second-sight staggering behind as he looked down to see the one he once was. The one who lay there dead on the side of that lonely road with a blood voice answering to nothing but carrion. He wanted to erase his name at that point. He wanted to turn himself inside out and waltz with long rivers of nonexistence. A pained smile came to his face. This gradual rising upwards, this lightness, was almost too much for him. Yet, soon he found that within him there existed no more fear. No more fear of blood. Only possibility and green-river promise. Again, he smelled gardenia. That woman's kiss lingering somewhere in his most ghostly remains of memory. He knew there would be things like this he would always remember. He knew that he could never die of forgetting.