Until Death Do Us Start

Sarah found Marcus in the Gardens Between, where the newly dead learn to let go.

“I’ve been waiting,” he said, extending skeletal fingers she recognised instantly, the same hands that had held hers through forty-seven years of marriage.

“You promised you’d wait for me.” She took his hand, feeling the curious lightness of bones unencumbered by flesh.

“I did. I am.”

Around them, memorial dahlias bloomed in impossible profusion, each flower a moment they’d shared: their first kiss, their daughter’s birth, Sunday mornings with tea and crosswords. The blooms pulsed with warmth that living flowers could never achieve.

“I thought death would separate us,” Sarah whispered.

Marcus drew her close, and she discovered that without hearts, souls could still recognise each other’s rhythm. The concentric dome above them shimmered, a cosmic witness to their reunion.

“Separate us?” He laughed, the sound like wind chimes made of light. “My love, we’ve barely started. Now we have eternity.”

They walked together into the garden’s depths, leaving footprints of stardust, while behind them the dahlias continued blooming, orange against the dark, defiant and eternal.