looked so alive, so timeless. So enduring. And in the other, so violated, so helpless, so dead; so utterly, unchangeably dead. Life is so terribly fragile. So fleeting. So brief. It’s a puzzle I can’t begin to understand even after all these years. One minute you’re dreaming of writing a novel, or retiring early, or vacationing in Bermuda, and the next you’re a slab of cooling meat with a blocked artery or a brain aneurysm. Or a chest full of cancer.
