...she said she was from Opecistan

Awakened by a bump in the night, the concept of mortality—the singular finality of an unconscious, black void—bore down on Evan as if he were pinned under a beached whale, crushing, suffocating. These thoughts were not new, however. He knew if he could tread the waters of sanity long enough the surging tide of lucidity would soon recede—at least to a tolerable enough level, above which he could lay down his weary soul on the shores of memories painfully recent, where he could rest once again till the next wave rose from this ocean of grief.
Though nearly intolerable, the cycle was, at least, predictable. In truth, it was only this predictability providing the last tenuous anchorage in his disappearing life. This sea of grief, its incessant waves and tides, and the survival of them was now the whole of his existence—the whole reason of his existence.
For a soul in his position, in the process of running out of that fuel of life—hope—one would assume, and forgivably so, relief to be, at least in his lucid moments, his one, all-consuming desire. Such was not Evan’s case, however; and in fact, the opposite was true. It was only the visceral pain and grief he longed for—a palpable, burning knot filling his torso from his groin to his neck. Above and below the burning was a mere crushing, as a vice—just a nuisance compared to the fire.
Relief? On its rare and short visits, it only multiplied the impending surge, exponentially so, into a tidal wave of epic, almost unsurvivable proportions. Cruel Relief and its pathetic encouragement. He disdained Relief, abhorred it, knowing far better than to long for its appearance on the horizon. When it did threaten to shine into his abyss he simply dove in head first and waited for it to pass.
Exhaustion eventually overcame the dread of extinction that evening and Evan had once again already begun the slow slide down that slippery slope into the subconscious night when the ceiling above his head began to sparkle. At first it was only with his peripheral vision that the sparkling was visible. But then, after a minute or two, the vague sparkling began to brighten. As the ceiling sparkled ever brighter and denser, the room grew darker and darker, until finally it appeared to Evan he was floating under a jewelesque night sky—the kind seen only after a wind blows away all the soot and dust, leaving in its wake, at least temporarily, a pristine sky.
To anyone other than Evan this phenomenon would surely evoke something: fear, awe, wonderment, gratitude, curiosity. But Evan simply lay there, floating as it were, staring at Orion’s belt only because that’s the direction in which his eyes happened toward, and he hadn’t the desire to look elsewhere. He felt the peace, like a pillow, under his head; like a blanket wrapped snuggly all around him. He felt it wash over his head, as warm water poured from a bucket slowly.
The universe had opened its door to Evan—but Evan refused to go, not knowing where this path might carry him. It might, as they confidently assured him in church, lead him to a city with streets paved with gold. It might, as he was more inclined to believe, lead him to galaxies that perished before the Milky Way was born. Or it might be a trap door to plunge him in to the pit of hell for all he cared; if there was a chance of a reunion with his wife and son he’d gladly jump through that trap door and happily roast eternity away.
These things, of course, he didn’t think on a conscious level. They simply made up his prime instinct. His mental capacity had been seared away till his sole objective was his dead wife and son. And if the crushing memory of their short time together was the last shred of their lives—the last bit of their existence—then such would have to suffice. Death, if it couldn’t guarantee at least their memory, was not an option.
The next morning, as he filled the coffee maker, and the pungent, caffeine-laden dust from the grinder tickled his nose, he wondered about the cabbalistic significance of the strange half-waking dream of the night before. He resolved to call the girl from the massage spa. He could still hear the sweet tone of conviction in her voice as she rubbed out the knotted muscles torturing his L4 and L5. She could feel—literally feel, just as if he was tugging on her—the moon pulling out, and the earth pulling back on her, this endless cycle of cosmic tug-of-war, alternately oppressing and liberating.
She said she was from Opecistan or some such place where they generally despised his people. Directly above the massage table, tacked to the ceiling, hung a picture of a cow’s eye—a large round, beautiful, brown eye with long lashes. She said it brought forth an overwhelming compassion that didn’t carry with it the mundane problem of connection: love, devotion, dedication, reciprocation, etc, etc.