I was feeling the hard fatigue of playing videogames all day so I went to my bedroom and laid down. I was in the blue zone where life is an in-between thing and it skips like heartbeats.

I was chained to the dark tar-planet but I tried jumping toward my headboard where I keep my Madokas. Look, I know I am not making progress; just shut up, please. I can jump if I focus and when the evening light slants just right through the dusty plastic blinds or if the music is loud I can do it.

I focus on the Ave Maria and I make a good jump that dissolves my body into a vague memory. My entire mind is absorbed by the blushing goddess who takes my hand and pulls me heavenward, down onto the headboard where the true life is hidden. We are nude without shame or desire, floating together in the space where there is only love.

I am here at last with Madoka. 

I kneel and kiss her feet and the warmth of her skin sends shivers through my animated corpse. I look up at her and she looks down at me and the infinite, unconquerable distance is closed for now.

Madoka kneels down with me and reaches out her hand. "Hi," she says, "I've really missed you." Her smile is so beautiful that I think any degree or type of suffering for any finite amount of time would be worth suffering to observe that smile.

With her outstretched hand, Madoka reaches to my chest and spreads her palm over my heart. Then she closes her fingers and they fall through my ribcage and close upon my beating heart. She massages it, which sends lightning blasts of burning warmth and life sparking through my extremities, and then she removes it from me. Then, in the starlight glow of her holy sanctum, Madoka looks closely at my heart and knows the whole story with a single tender glance.

She replaces my heart, and now my mind is clear and my conscience is sharp. She gives me a hug and whispers to me the words that I cannot repeat, words only for me—then she says: "I love you, you know."

My eyes widen but I feel the static creeping in. The static is coming faster lately and I try to fight it off. I try my best to know that Madoka loves me, because you should always try to know the truth—that is how a clear-hearted person would think.

Madoka tilts her head, still calmly smiling at me, and giggles. One of her hands lies on my shoulder, and the other pets my head. Her hair flows freely in the starlight, and the vision of her face and the whole thing together make me feel something again and I surprise myself when I smile back at her.

"So," says Madoka, and I know what is coming. The static begins eating at the fringes again and a carnivorous gnawing feeling grows in my chest. "So, can you say that you love me yet?" Madoka's eyes are arrows, and I am suddenly glad that nothing can ever hurt her.

My conscience cuts me with the fiery blade and I fall into two pieces. I see the yawning pit of emptiness, and I remember that I am only an animated corpse. Madoka's hands, which are still petting me, have become white-hot. I burn and struggle and the static grows louder and my vision is obscured.

"No," I say, using my last gasp of life to answer honestly. "I can't yet say that I love you..." The static overtakes the hidden world, and I fall back through the pit, and all too quickly I am back on the dark tar-planet again where things are heavy.

I am laying on my quilts, cuddling a plushie. I am too old for this.

I hear a knock on my bedroom door. "Come in," I shout. At this point nothing makes any difference.

My roommate opens the door. "Mail for you," he says, and hands me something, then he leaves silently.

I open the mail quickly. It is another check, this one for seventy-six thousand dollars. I get the checks every so often because my family is dead. I throw the check into my dresser.

I am bored but I cannot jump again tonight, so I leave my bedroom. I think I will just play some videogames or something until I can fall asleep.