Afterwards they rose to meteors scribing violet and crimson arcs across the sky.

“Too beautiful,” she said.

“Near the end, when the halo ice burns, we’ll see fire falls.”

Later, she whispered, “We’re still fabulous together.”

“Never better,” he agreed.

Together, they watched the night become the incandescence of extinction.

Jack Kogut is a mostly professional engineer and mostly amateur scribbler of mostly fiction.