Q

An old woman stands alone in a dark, narrow room.

She is reciting nonsensical lines. “I like YOUTH! I like ASIA! I love YOUTHASIA!” She says them with deliberation and enunciation; loudly, perhaps louder than necessary.

When she is done the room is abruptly silent and hollow.

She remembers a child who was once precious to her. Remembers not only it but the depth of her love as she peered into the cot at its fat, thrashing limbs, remembers the way it returns her attention.

Before this child there was a string of others. She did not love them as much as the child because her love was divided, but their footsteps and voices fill her mind and remind her that she is alive.

Now she thinks about her husband. In a jar she has kept his bones. At the angle, the jar projects a dimensional image of him as he used to be on a domed glass surface.

She kisses the image, but the surface is searing hot.

She cries out and falls backwards.

She lies there, crying, her lips a raw red.

And then I woke up. She, I think, either outlived her husband, children, and grandchildren. On hindsight I think “I love youthasia” might be her saying she wanted to be euthanized. In my dream I didn’t make the connection.

Waking up with that final image makes me indescribably sad.