I was outside the office enjoying a hot beverage when two small women came out and sat down nearby. One of them works at the coffee bar in the atrium so it was her break, and her friend had come to visit. As soon as their cigarettes were lit, the friend immediately started saying: “It was really quick, he wasn't in any discomfort, and then around Thanskgiving weekend he started fading fast, didn't know what was going on even.” “Well, that's just as well.” She went on like that for a while, and I couldn't decide if she was talking about her cat that had died, or her dog, or her husband. It obviously meant something to her, but it wasn't a big deal. Yet it was the thing she had come to talk about, the day's topic.

Then I thought, maybe it is a big deal, but she's on some kind of happy meds so it doesn't matter. And then I imagined a scene: the husband slipping away, his personality and memories already an incoherent, shallow jumble of morphine dreams; his wife countering with xanax. Back and forth. Soon nobody knows what's going on.