The boardwalk is rotting and dilapidated, but not yet abandoned.

A few of the wooden stands have crumpled, and blackened tufts of fur from the stuffed toy prizes flutter shyly through the rubble in the wind. Leaning against a rusty railing, a bench is caked in dust, upon which a child sits, tear tracks slicing through the dark grime on his cheeks.

It is difficult to tell the time under the darkness the smoke in the sky casts around us, but if the child’s watch is correct, it must be a little past noon here.

Though of course, I find Earthly concepts of time confusing. When days for me often blend together, time diminishes to a steady background thrum.

I sit down on the bench beside him, stretching my legs. Despite having made myself visible to him, the child does not seem to notice me. He lets out a few sad hiccups but otherwise stays silent and motionless.

I do not mind. I am used to silence. For so long it has only been me, myself, and I; surely a being like me can learn to adapt.

The smoke wafts close to the ground, threatening to envelop us like some sort of wicked fog, and the child takes a few ragged breaths before giving in to a coughing fit. Having witnessed many similar scenes before, I quickly notice what is missing and find myself asking the child, Where is your mask?

Fully expecting the boy to ignore me, I am surprised when he wheezes out a reply, “I left it at home.”

I pause, unused to conversation after all those years hurtling through space, looking for somewhere whole enough to land. (Although, every world once whole will fall apart eventually, and as one who has witnessed many a dying planet, this one is coming quite close.)

Why? I settle on asking.

By then the child has stopped coughing. “I’m sick of wearing it. I can’t breathe.”

Stay outside a little too long without it, and you really won’t be able to breathe.

“My mom says I can’t play anymore.”

Play?

“With my friends.”

I look out over the dark water, at the black smoke that kisses its surface by the gray buildings a little ways further down the beach.

Your mom might be right, I say, and he begins to shake, but not cry—a relief, as I would prefer to avoid dealing with sobbing children.

I sit and think about where I can go next, never tending to stay in one place for too long. Give a planet a few millennia—it can get boring quick. And so I often find myself flitting from system to system, galaxy to galaxy, staying just long enough to see the stars begin to dim.

A depressingly lonesome and immutably eternal existence, but I make it work.

A few minutes later, when he stills once more, the child blurts out, “Guess how old I am.”

Hm?

“Guess how old I am.”

Let’s see…are you…seven?

“I turned six and a half yesterday.”

Six and a half. That’s a big number, I lie.

“Yeah. I’m older than a lot of my friends.”

I’m also very old. Except I don’t have many friends, unfortunately.

“That’s sad. I have a lot of friends. Do you know Cyrus?”

I’m afraid I don’t.

“Oh. He’s my best friend. He moved away, though. His parents didn’t like it here.”

You should probably wear your mask.

“I hate my mask.”

And that is that.

We sit in silence on opposite sides of the dingy bench for what could be ten minutes, but could also be an hour, until a girl runs down the rickety wood of the boardwalk to the boy.

“Neo, where have you been?” she splutters.

She falls to her knees in front of him, brushing her dark hair away from her pink oxygen mask. It reaches to her eyebrows, with built-in shaded goggles that create the effect of oversized insect eyes, around which she seems to have hot-glued a handful of blue plastic gems. I cannot see any part of her face.

The boy, Neo, looks at me for the first time then, dark green eyes wide and helpless. I look back, silent.

“What are you looking for, Neo, look at me,” the girl says sharply, grabbing his chin, turning his face back to her. She has a blue oxygen mask in her other hand, one with little designs of fishes along the sides, and tries to force it on him.

The boy screams—“Ida, stop it!”—and waves his fists around—“Don’t hit me, Neo, you know mom’s going to yell at both of us if you don’t put this on”—desperately trying to keep the mask from touching his face. Eventually he grabs it and throws it over the railing behind us, and I watch it sink into the disgusting water, fascinated by the gruesome juxtaposition of smiling cartoon fish brushing against ones that are floating and lifeless on the way down.

Ida seems livid, and I half expect her to hit him back. But then she notices the tear tracks on her brother’s face.

All the tension seems to dissipate from her body, and after a few moments, she sighs, raising her hands to the back of her head, unfastening her bedazzled oxygen mask. When she removes it from her face it becomes evident to me just how alike they look, with the same green doe eyes and curly black hair. Except, where her brother’s eyes still shine, hers are rimmed in red, boasting telltale dark circles beneath. But despite her haggard and adultish mien, it seems to me that she cannot yet be out of high school.

“I don’t want to wear them either, you know,” I watch her whisper to her brother. Her eyes fill with tears and she bows her head, wiping her face with her arm. “I hate them, too.”

Neo stares vacantly ahead through the gloom, identical green eyes welling up with identical tears, as his sister leans her head against his knees, holding her face in her hands and trembling almost violently now with the effort to contain what could either be sobs or a coughing fit. “I hate them so much.” She sniffs, and, as an afterthought: “Hate is a very strong word, don’t use it, Neo.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

The girl raises her head and wipes her eyes. “Wanna go home?”

Neo nods, and she stands, scooping him up in her arms. The pink mask sits forlornly on the ground, and she pretends not to notice it, carding her fingers through her brother’s hair.

As they make their way, he casts a final longing glance towards me, eyes green and glistening, before burying his face in his sister’s shoulder.

I leave the boardwalk.