The ink is dry. It has been dry for three days. The paper is soft, worn thin by the thumb of a child who has held it too long. I look at the name. It is my name. But the letters are fading. Not smudging. Fading. Like a footprint in snow under a hot sun.

I am seven years old. Or maybe eight. Time is slippery here. It pools in the corners of the room. I sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress sags under my weight. It is a hospital bed. Or a church pew. I cannot tell. The walls are white. The light is white. Everything is white.

There is a man in the corner. He wears a gray suit. His face is smooth. No wrinkles. No eyes, really. Just smooth skin where eyes should be. He is watching me. He is always watching.

“Do you understand?” he asks. His voice is the sound of paper tearing.

I nod. I am afraid. But I am also proud. I have done what I was told. I have written the truth. I have written down the things I saw. The things that hurt. I put them on the paper. I pressed my thumb into the wet ink. I made the mark.

The man smiles. It is a cold smile. “Good. Then you are free.”

I stand up. My legs are stiff. I walk to the door. The door is open. Beyond it is a hallway. The hallway stretches out forever. The floor is glass. I can see what is under the glass. It is dark. It is wet. It is full of things I do not want to see.

I step onto the glass. It is cold. It bites into my bare feet. I do not care. I walk. The man does not follow. I am alone. I am free.

I walk for a long time. The hallway changes. It becomes a field. The grass is silver. It chimes when the wind blows. The wind is loud. It screams. I cover my ears. I keep walking.

I see a boy in the distance. He is sitting on a log. He is reading a book. He is wearing a red shirt. I know him. I do not know how I know him. I know him the way I know my own heartbeat.

I run to him. My feet bleed on the silver grass. The blood is red. It pops against the silver.

“Hey,” I say. My voice is small.

He looks up. He is Leo. Leo is my friend. He is the only person who is real. He has a scar on his chin. He has a gap in his teeth. He looks at me. He does not smile.

“You’re bleeding,” he says.

“I’m free,” I say. I show him my hand. The paper is in my pocket. I pull it out. The name is almost gone. Just a blur. “I did it. I left.”

Leo looks at the paper. He looks at my face. His eyes are dark. They are deep. They hold a sadness that is too big for his face.

“Is it true?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Everything I wrote. It’s true. They were wrong. They lied. I proved it.”

Leo says nothing. He closes his book. The book is black. It has no title.

“Come with me,” he says. He stands up. He brushes the grass off his pants. “Let’s go find the edge.”

We walk. We do not speak. The wind chimes. The silver grass sways. It is beautiful. It is terrible. We walk for hours. The light does not change. It stays white. It stays bright. It hurts my eyes.

“Why is it so bright?” I ask.

Leo shrugs. “It’s not bright. It’s just empty. When you take something away, the space left behind is loud.”

I think about the man. I think about the gray suit. I think about the smooth face. I wanted to beat him. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to make him see. But I didn’t. I just wrote. I just marked. I thought that would be enough. I thought that would be a weapon.

“Do you miss it?” I ask. “The other place. The one we came from.”

Leo stops. He looks at me. “I miss the rain,” he says. “I miss the mud. I miss the noise. I miss being wrong.”

I don’t understand. “Why would you miss being wrong?”

“Because when you’re wrong, you’re alive,” he says. “When you’re right, you’re just a record. You’re a file. You’re a name on a list.”

I look at the paper in my hand. The ink is gone. The paper is blank. It is just a piece of paper. It is soft. It is weak. It can tear.

I feel a tear in my chest. It is a small tear. It grows. It pulls at my ribs. I gasp.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Leo says. He puts his hand on my shoulder. His hand is warm. It is the only warm thing in this world. “It’s the cost. You wanted freedom. You wanted to be clear. You wanted to be true. But truth is heavy. It breaks the body.”

I look at my hands. They are translucent. I can see the silver grass through my fingers. I am fading. I am becoming part of the white.

“No,” I say. “I’m not fading. I’m becoming clear. I’m becoming free.”

Leo shakes his head. “You’re becoming empty. That’s not freedom. That’s death. Just death without the end.”

I want to fight. I want to scream. I want to tear the paper. I want to shout at the sky. But I have no voice. My voice is gone. It was used up. It was spent on the writing. It was spent on the proving.

I look at Leo. I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to tell him I was afraid. I want to tell him that I didn’t want to be a ghost. I just wanted someone to listen. I just wanted someone to see me.

He sees me. He always sees me.

“Hold on,” I say. But I have no hands. My fingers are mist.

Leo takes my wrist. Or what was my wrist. He holds it tight. He holds it so tight that I feel pain. The pain is good. The pain is real.

“I won’t let go,” he says.

“But I’m gone,” I say.

“No,” he says. “You’re here. You’re just quiet.”

The white is closing in. It is like fog. It is like milk. It is swallowing the field. It is swallowing the grass. It is swallowing the light.

I am afraid. I am so afraid. I don’t want to be nothing. I don’t want to be a blank page. I want to be a boy with a scar and a gap in his teeth and a dirty shirt. I want to be messy. I want to be wrong. I want to be loud.

I look at Leo. He is crying. His tears are black. They fall on the silver grass. They burn holes in it.

“Tell me a story,” I say. “Tell me a story about the rain.”

Leo wipes his face. He takes a breath. He starts to speak.

“Once,” he says. “There was a boy. He lived in a house with a leaky roof. Every night, the rain came in. It was cold. It was wet. It soaked his bed. His mother told him to get a bucket. He did. He put the bucket under the leak. But the water was too much. It overflowed. It ran across the floor. It went under the door. It went into the hallway. It went into the kitchen. It went into the street.”

I listen. I hold onto his voice. It is the only anchor.

“The boy stood in the middle of the floor,” Leo says. “He didn’t try to stop the water. He didn’t try to fix the roof. He just stood there. He let the water wash over his feet. He let it wash over his legs. He let it wash over his waist. He stood in the water. He laughed. He splashed. He played in the flood.”

I remember. I remember the rain. I remember the mud. I remember the joy.

The white is almost here. It is at my ankles. It is at my knees. It is cold. It is silent.

“I want to go back,” I say. “I want to be in the bucket. I want to be wet. I want to be dirty.”

Leo nods. “You can be anything. You can be the water. You can be the boy. You can be the rain. You just have to stop trying to be the paper.”

I look at the paper in my hand. It is still there. It is blank. I let it go. It floats up. It rises into the white. It disappears.

I feel a lightness. It is not emptiness. It is relief. I am not the name. I am not the mark. I am not the proof. I am the boy. I am the rain. I am the splash.

The white touches my face. It is cold. I close my eyes. I do not fight it. I let it in. I let it wash over me. I let it carry me.

I am not gone. I am just changing shape. I am becoming the silence between the notes. I am becoming the space between the words.

Leo is still holding my hand. Or maybe he is not. Maybe he is just a memory. Maybe I am just a memory. Maybe we are both just rain falling on a silver field.

I am free. I am free from the need to be seen. I am free from the need to be right. I am free from the weight of the truth.

I am just water.

I am just life.

I am here.

The wind chimes.

The grass sways.

The rain begins.