Damned

Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. Ask me the square root of pi. Ask me how many pecks are in a bushel. Ask me anything about the truncated, tragic life of Charlotte Bronte. I can tell you exactly when Joyce Kilmer died in the Second Battle of the Marne. I can tell you the combination of keys, Ctrl+Alt+S or Ctrl+Alt+Q, which will access the security cameras or manipulate the lighting and window treatments of my sealed bedrooms in Copenhagen or Oslo, those rooms my mother has air-conditioned down to meat locker... down to archival temperatures, where the electrostatic air filters prohibit a speck of dust to ever settle, where my clothes and shoes and stuffed animals wait in the darkness, locked away from sun fade and humidity, patient as the alabaster jars and gilded toys which accompanied any boy pharaoh into his eternal tomb. Ask me about the ecology in Fiji and the amusing personal habits of tony Hollywood gadabouts. Ask me to describe the political machinations embedded in the all-girls culture of a très-reserved Swiss boarding school. Just do NOT ask me how I'm feeling. Do not ask if I still miss my parents. Don't ask if I still cry from being so homesick. Of course the dead miss the living.

Personally, I myself miss sipping Twinings English Breakfast Tea and reading Elinor Glyn novels on rainy days. I miss smelling the citrus tang of Bain de Soleil, cheating at backgammon against our Somali maids, and practicing the gavotte and the minuet.

But on a larger scale, to be brutally honest, the dead miss everything.

In my desperation to talk, for the comfort of a little chat therapy, I telephone Canadian Emily, and a woman answers the phone. When she asks my name I tell her that I'm Emily's friend from long distance and ask if Emily can please come talk, just for a minute. Please.

At this, the woman begins to sniff, then sob. Over the telephone, she's drawing deep shuddering breaths, choked with guttering sobs. Keening. "Emily," she says, "my baby..." Her words dissolving into cries, she says, "My baby girl's gone back into the hospital..." The woman rallies, sniffing, asking if she can relay a message from me to Emily.

And yes, despite all my considerable Swiss training in decorum, regardless of my hippie training in empathy, over the telephone I ask, "Is Emily about to die?"

No, it's not fair, but what makes life feel like Hell is our expectation that it should last forever. Life is short. Dead is forever. You'll find out for yourself soon enough. It won't help the situation for you to get all upset.

"Yes," the woman says, her voice hoarse, deep with emotion. "Emily is about to die." Her voice flat with resignation, she asks, "Would you like me to tell her something for you?"

And I say, "Never mind."

I say, "Don't let her forget to bring my ten Milky Way candy bars."

XXV.