It was winter, when the icicles collected themselves that I first had the idea. It had been a long time coming.

One by one they came clattering down under the relative warmth of the winter sun.

I am going to go home.

I said it to myself first alone where the idea could have just as soon flown off into the distance. But then, again, in close company around the glow of artificial light, again the words came out, shattering against the ground.

I am going to go home.

It won’t be a simple matter. The journey will be long. Everything and everyone here will be long dead by the time I arrive. There are limitations that even the powerful cannot break. I knew this when I came here, that I could only ever be here once.

There is a sadness in it, but also relief. I walk this place no longer part of it. My dress billows out behind me in the wind. Perhaps it was there all along, but I am just now seeing it.

There are tears and there are moments and there is a whole planet’s worth of last times. But an ending cannot go on forever.

I am climbing the rungs now. The light from this place will follow me, the reflections of sunbeams that once glanced of my cheek. Echos of something as distant in place as in time.