“We’re sorry, but we can’t give you an answer. The question of ‘when’ doesn’t really matter to us. We just are,” Fernn whistles. 
         I can’t recall how long ago the past was, but I suppose it doesn’t matter now that there will be no future. The breeze stills, and life seems to pause again. The silence scared me once, as if at any moment sound would fall from the sky and scream in a fit of rage. Eventually, I realized that I would always be the one to break it, would always have another moment of peace if I wished. But right now, I want only the truth. “Why am I here, then?”
         “You have asked this question many times before.”
         “Well, I was hoping you would have a different answer. Something more… I don’t know, hopeful?”
         “Nothing changes here. There’s no need for hope, nor for despair; the ending is the same either way. There is none.”
         “That’s not true. Aren’t my questions new? I’m thinking more thoughts all the time, and you’re giving answers you’ve never considered before.”
         “Yes. But we will always run out of novelties.”
         I feel the wind on my cheek like a taunt, like a weakly balled fist. Maybe I’m missing my little brother, who must be waiting for me someplace where Fernn does not exist. The cool leaves invite me onto the ground, and my eyes meet the sky. White. Not like dull hospital walls or printer paper or a bridesmaid’s forbidden dress. It’s more like looking into the light on your ceiling, vision worsening by the second. Or, I suppose it could even be the absence of light, like stumbling around in a windowless room, searching for a crack in the walls. The world is somehow clearer than it was before, and you know for certain that something is there, right there where you’re looking. Yes, the sky is white, in the sense that it is utterly indifferent. “Do you ever want to leave?”
         “Leave? And go where?”
         “I don’t know… Home? Traveling? You could get on a rocket and fly to Pluto.”
         “How do you know those places are real?”
         “Well, I didn’t always live here. I used to be able to go wherever I wanted to. I knew other people, once!”
         “You can still go anywhere; this plane is infinite. We won’t stop you.”
         “It’s not the same! The sky used to change colors. We had night and day, and I loved the night, but I can’t love it anymore, because I don’t see it anymore. There used to be stars out there, and I could count all these different worlds that existed beyond my own.”
         “How do you know those places are real?”
         I bite my tongue. The plants around me rustle in the language of truth, and I recognize it begrudgingly. What was the sky to me but a painter’s canvas? Stars, precisely random daubs; clouds, jaded brushstrokes. It could have been a canopy, a movie projected onto a worn tarp, the boundary of life. “Does it matter?”
         “No, it does not.”
         I close my eyes and try to think of something that does not matter. I imagine that there are other white skies and other Fernns and other lost people like me. I imagine a room without walls or a ceiling or a floor; I imagine an immortal light and a lightswitch that never flicks on; I imagine that all this is real. “Is this a dream?”
         The air is still. 
         “Fernn? Is this a dream?” 
         I open my eyes. Something has changed, but I don’t know what. Did I imagine it too? I clutch my blankets, running my thumbs over the cheap fabric as if I had just been touching something else. I can see that the blue, tiled ceiling has not changed from yesterday, and I’m confident that the box fan has been on the lowest setting. But the ache runs deep in my bones, and I’m frantically checking the tubes and reading the screens for a sign. Does it matter?
         My little brother finally wakes up beside me. The plastic chair creaks under his weight—how did he grow so big overnight? He looks at me and his eyes widen. My hand, gripped right, two smiles emerging, an teary embrace. Fernn’s answer echoes in my mind. It does not. It does not. For the first time in my life, forever feels familiar.