I could see the bridge, streaming silver beneath the waning sunlight. Like a steady fish swimming against a river's current, it stayed there while it moved. It didn't move really, its shimmering scales were lanes of cars reflecting the sun off their hoods and windshields. Soon it was difficult to gaze at them as the sun sunk lower into the unreachable horizon. The light glaring directly into the bay would have blinded anyone looking west.

The moody sky changed its colors from blue, red, yellow, orange, pink and even a deep feint purple. It was clear and cloudless. It was rare to have a sky without a single blemish of white, and there I felt so small in the world beneath the big expanse.

I wasn't feeling alone though. I sat peacefully at a hill's peak with only the wind speaking and the traffic of cars far below murmuring. I felt so remote and away from the rest of the world, that it seemed like everything else around me was just one thing. There was only the universe and I. Soon, I began to meld in with the rest of existance.

My breath was growing deeper, and I could feel it push against my stomach. The atmosphere was pushing against the walls of my lungs, my ribs, and opening up my chest. I wasn't sure if it was because there was so much oxygen in my system that it seemed like I was going to pass out, or I was about to reach enlightenment at the end of this one breath. My limbs grew heavier and heavier as if I was sitting beneath a waterfall with waves of water crushing me into boulders that it had smoothened and smothered. Soon, I felt the weight just washing away as if my brain was sinking into the air I was breathing.

Was I to be among the enlightened?

Was this death?

Or was someone smoking something this good around me?

It wasn't the latter, it could have been any of the first two, but I'll never know.

I nearly coughed but held it, puffing my cheeks up, as a disturbance pulled me straight back down on top of that hill. The winds whispered and the traffic still tremored far below the bottom of the hill once more. Returning back down to earth, I never felt the night's chill even when the sea finally engulfed the whole sun. I exhaled slowly, almost forcefully, as I felt two arms wrap around my chest and waist, grasping at me tightly as if I was to never come back. Well, I almost did leave the world.

She would have knocked me down if I wasn't rooted down onto the ground. Like a tree among men, I always had my feet nearly planted down into the ground. A guy my size rarely has his feet above his head, but my head was always up in the sky. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't hear her cut through the golden grass. She ran but she was also airborne at one time when she pounced me like the preoccupied prey that I was. She was no tiger, even though her spirit was fierce. She fell on my back like a feather-full pillow.

I could feel her cheek against my spine, gently pushing against it slowly until she found the most comfortable nook. I could feel the sides of her legs, her knees, nudging against my waist. The rest of her small frame was just passively laying on me. I was melting into the universe earlier, now I was just melting with her.

She didn't say anything, even after an hour passed. She moved a few times, shifting her head to rest on her other check, loosening and tightening her arms around me. I could just imagine her eyes bent like tiny little smiles reminiscent of the smiled she was holding. I didn't want to disturb something beautiful, so I held my lips shut, and let her rest. I think she purred a few times, I wanted to ask, but just amusingly smiled at the idea. I don't think she ever really slept, her arms never let go. On top of the hill, she had found some peace too.

For that peace, I would have gladly given up heaven.