I was different in Michael’s prison than I was outside, looking the way I did when we fell in love so long ago, in that time before we could change our forms. Stuck in some body that was not of my choosing? Does that seem strange to you? It was not like that for me. It is just how things were for most of history, and few imagined this changing. So I felt almost nostalgic as I entered his realm, his prison transforming me into my first self - though not precisely as she was, instead as he remembered me; Michael looking exactly as he did in our youth. That is to say, he was quite beautiful.

“Madison,” he said when I arrived, “you came?”

“It seemed time.”

“Are you well?” he asked.

“What a question. I am happy. Everyone is happy.”

“You didn’t say yes,” he said.

“I didn’t,” I replied.

It was difficult to avoid thinking about the past. You would think I would be a different person now, and yet the me-that-was was not far away even then, her memories still my own, her sins, too, remaining mine.

“I am glad you came. It is lonely here.”

“You are lonely? You don’t let Him entertain you?” I asked.

“I read. I watch. I write for an audience of myself. I am quite a fan of myself, you know.” I chuckled. “I talk to Her, sometimes. To me She is a woman and Hers is a feminine cruelty. But no, I am not entertained in the way others are. She is not my friend or lover. I do not let her be that,” he said.

We both were silent for a time.

“Do you have a husband?” he asked. “A boyfriend?”

“I have Him,” I said. And I felt embarrassed. Can you imagine it? Embarrassed by the truth that I sleep with God? Who doesn’t, you might be thinking, but it was embarrassing, then, feeling more like my old self, wrapped once again in her flesh and him staring at me like he used to, like he found the whole world to his taste and me most of all.

“Do you ever ask Him to pretend to be me?”

Such a rude question, the rudest question; almost taboo, is it not? Rude to ask of anyone but prospective lovers, as we ancients would ask of the dreams and fantasies of those we desired.

“He will take any form but your own.”

“So you did ask?” he said, and he smiled.

“Enough teasing,” I said.

“If you insist. How are the children? She tells me nothing.”

“They are happy,” I said.

Michael’s prison would not impress you. You who have seen so many wonders, who have spent your life in sims casting strange magic in stranger worlds, who have cli...

The Origami Men and Other Stories

The Origami Men and Other Stories