Naked in the cramped cottage bedroom, I sit up and take a deep breath of musky air. The mattress is wrapped in clean, flower-patterned sheets. The room is dimly lit by my iPhone charging in the corner. Creeping out of bed, I hear Marie wake up. She turns over onto her back. I feel the floor's wooden grain on my bare feet as I lumber over to my pile of clothes beside the bed.

"You're awake?" Marie asks groggily and with a hint of surprise. I pull my pants up. "Where you going?"

"I can't sleep."

She stretches and moans. "Try praying," she says. "That always helps me."

Buttoning down my top, I stare at her peaceful face, her lips slightly parting into a smile.

"What do you say when you pray," I ask her, curious.

"I say thank you for this and that, mostly."

"Does he ever say anything back?" I say, sarcastically, but without malice.

"Of course he does -- in everything -- in the sun rising and setting every day, in the people we meet..."

"What does he say?" I smirk.

"He says, hey, Marie, I'm right here, okay. I got you," Marie closes her eyes and her voice trails off. I disconnect my iPhone from its charger and see that it's 3:13am.

"Okay then," I say. "I'll give prayer a try."

She beams and turns over to her side to face me. "Use the Rosary I gave you."

"The Rosary?" I say.

"The green one."

I look at her puzzled – a vague memory of a green Rosary seeps into my mind. "Okay," I say, struggling to remember where I had last seen it. It was at the hospital, I think, hanging on the footboard of the bed. The metal cross was clinking on the steel bars. I may have left it, but it doesn't matter now. "Go to sleep, sweetheart," I stroke her hair as she drifts into sleep.

In the darkness, I feel my way out of the bedroom and into the living room where the drapes of the large window are pulled wide open, letting in a very faint glow from the starlit sky outside. My eyes adjust quickly. I see the outline of the table where two flashlights stand upright. I grab one of them.

The screen door creaks open, followed by more creaks from the wooden planks on the old porch. I grope my way down the staircase to the dirt ground below, continuing on down the hillside towards the lake. I shine the flashlight on the earth before taking each step, making sure the ground is even there. A wind blows dry dirt onto my face and I clench my eyes shut. The autumn night is void of summer cricket noises and mosquitoes buzzing in my ears – there is only the relentless rushing of wind.

As I descend the slope, the sound of small waves smacking against wood gets closer. At the foot of the hill, the ground levels out, and I find myself at the mouth of a boat deck floating in the water. Stepping onto the deck, it wobbles and I shift my weight side to side for balance. Ahead of me, the stars reflect off the lake like wavering white dots. I turn off the flashlight and see my own body vanish in the blackness, as if I'm just a pair of eyes hovering over the lake, encompassed by stars above and stars below.

I know that the stars are millions of miles away, its light taking thousands of years to reach my eyes, and I wonder if the actual galactic orbs of gas are even still up there at all -- or are they ghosts – remnants from another time, like the Facebook pages and blog posts left behind from people who have already died.

Turning back, I step off the unsteady deck onto solid ground, and I sit on a bench a few feet away from the water, resting under the hanging branches of a maple tree. The bench is like a miniature version of a city park bench, as if it was made for children, and perhaps it was, placed there by Dad decades ago for me. Compelled by the peacefulness, I try, in the darkness, to recall everything I knew before I had deleted my childhood from my mind. I struggle to recall the faces of all my grade one classmates from shortest to tallest. Gradually, I remember a time when Dad carried Mom into their bedroom, both of them laughing hysterically, and once again, I come to possess what is already mine.

Looking up at the stars again, I remember Marie telling me to pray, and I begin to search for Marie's God – and Mom's God – there in the stars. But I only see the stars – unmoving in the sky for billions of years. So I look beyond the stars – behind them – and see them this time as God's words - written billions of years ago.

If Marie is right, then the stars, like the mountains and the oceans, are the true scripture of God. Everything is God's words. I think of the generations of men who have come to pass and I imagine the first morning of time when God began writing his message to me – a message traveling through millenniums to reach me here by the lake.

But what does the message say? What do His words mean? Perhaps the sum total of all stars is simply a single word. Or perhaps the message is not a word, but a single sound that inferred the entire universe. Here, standing alone under the stars, I pray – thankful for his words -- this autumn air, this night sky, these stars, this body of mine. And I thank God for my emptiness – my vast, infinite and glorious emptiness. And suddenly, I feel as if the ground below and the sky above is replacing the prison of my small apartment, and the eternity and vastness of the universe is the new extension of my identity.

And with this understanding, this bliss of understanding, I dig out the iPhone from my pocket and stare down at its lighted screen. My peripheral vision disappears, darkness surrounds me, and I only see the whiteness of the screen, almost blindingly, and nothing else. The tiny computer in my hand is a connection to another universe as complex and shared as the one I stood in. The other universe is the Internet – a dynamic book of infinite messages, endless identities, and inner dimensions. I tap the Facebook icon, and the app opens, asking for a username, so I type in Will's email address and stare at the empty field asking for a password. If it's true that I had created the page, then I must know the password. I try the first word that comes to my mind – IamwhatIam.

And then I'm in. My breath quickens. I check to see Will's messages -- none. I check to see Will's friend requests -- none. There is nothing hidden in the account. There are only the posts. Access into the account offers nothing new except for the power to write a new status update – to enter a new and final post.

I begin to type on the touch screen, in a trance, as if writing in a vacuum, and the words spill onto the screen like olive oil. Then time skips, and the page is full of words -- an hour may have passed, or a minute -- it is impossible for me to tell. A tornado could have ravaged the cottage only yards away, and I would not have noticed. But it doesn't matter now – it's over. The profile of Will is finished. He is free now – free to exist forever – free from me.

The wind blows stronger, and waves slap the deck harder. After taking a deep breath, I light a cigarette, its amber tip glowing brighter as I inhale. Looking up at the cottage, I see a light in the window. Marie must be awake now, waiting for me. But then the light turns off, and the cottage turns into a black outline against the purplish sky. Beside the cottage on the west side is the dense forest that ate my childhood, swallowing it whole and imprisoning it there until this afternoon. The forest is now just a forest – just a bunch of trees and a dead birch with a single nail protruding from its trunk where a portrait used to be.

I think I hear something – a voice deep in the forest. I must be imagining it. A wind plunders through the trees and I curse at the noise, listening for the voice.

I hear it again.

"No!" screams a distant voice in the wind. It's Marie.

It can't be -- impossible. I look up at the cottage. "Marie!" I yell with all the might of my lungs, waiting futilely for the cottage windows to light up. I shake my head, upset that I'm allowing paranoia to possess me like a demon. It's late, and I must be hearing things, I convince myself. But I need to know for sure.

I clamber up the hillside, the cigarette hanging from my lips. I point the flashlight to the west, but the light does not hit anything – it disappears into the darkness between the trees. Sucking in a final nervous drag, I drop the cigarette and crush it into the dirt with the heel of my boot. I exhale the sweet nicotine that fails to relax me as it usually does, and I trudge into the darkness to the west.

Flustering, I swing the light from tree to tree. All sounds are heightened, like the crushing of foliage at my feet and the rustling leaves above. My fingers tighten around the flashlight and I jerk the light towards every sound. Trekking deeper, thick vines creep around me. Branches from twisted oaks hover like outstretched arms. An owl screeches overhead. Blood rushes past my ears.

And then I see it – the dead birch. The wind expands, and the rustle of leaves becomes deafening. My flashlight beam stretches towards the tree and I see something out of place. At first glance, in the blurring darkness, I'm not sure what it is. I move closer and almost drop my flashlight. There, facing the tree, is a lonely wooden chair. It's one of my kitchen chairs -- I recognize it. I must be hallucinating. I shake my head and shut my eyes tight, but when I open them, the chair is still there, as clear as a monument in the daylight. I move closer, waiting in vain for the chair to disappear like a mirage. I inch closer and closer until the chair is under my nose and I see the fine lines from its varnished wood.

I touch the backrest. Warm? I yank my hand back and drop the flashlight. It thumps on the damp ground, throwing the chair into darkness. Falling to my knees, I scramble for the light. A sound cuts through the silence -- rattling, like fingernails tapping wood. I raise the flashlight, not daring to blink –the green Rosary hangs from the chair, swaying in the wind and hitting the wood. I stop the crucifix from swinging and run my fingers down the beads, making sure the thing is real – and it is. It is too real.

"Hey buddy," says a voice in the darkness.