Jim says, do you ever imagine what life will be like after?

After what? I ask.

After we die, he says.

Like heaven or hell, the afterlife?

Sure, he says, the afterlife.

I don’t know, I say.

Our dogs, a pair of pit bulls, with tongues hanging out, run past us, chasing spit-slick tennis balls. Lili looks up at me each time she passes, her eyes wide and screaming, please, Dad, another few minutes.

Out past the dogs, and Jim, and the tennis court’s chain-link fence is a narrow stream, buffered from the sidewalk by a thin line of trees.

The gate opens and another dog, Charlie, the Springer Spaniel and his owner, Rosemarie, from down the street, enters and kickstarts Lili and Theo and now all three of them are circling round and round and I start to spin for reasons I can’t explain, already dizzy with spring, with questions of the afterlife, and after five or six fast circles I’m on the ground.

Jim and Rosemarie rush to me, asking If I’m okay and I laugh, say I’m fine. Then beyond them, from the creek I see the Great Blue Heron I’ve named Love take flight, something small and silver hanging from its beak.

There, I say, there, and all three of us watch the beautiful bird lift up and over the tree line until all that’s left is the six of us—a trio of dogs and their aging owners--on these tennis courts and that seems like more than enough.

Steve Cushman is the author of three novels, including Portisville, winner of the 2004 Novello Literary Award. He has published two poetry chapbooks, and his first full-length collection, How Birds Fly, won the 2018 Lena Shull Book award. His latest collection, The Last Time, was published by Unicorn Press in 2023. Cushman lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, and works in the IT department at Cone Health.