you believe in reincarnation? I ask. “Perhaps.” What would you come back as? “If I had my choice, a gazelle.” A gazelle? “Yes. So graceful. So fast.” A gazelle? Morrie smiles at me. “You think that’s strange?” I study his shrunken frame, the loose clothes, the socks-wrapped feet that rest stiffly on foam rubber cushions, unable to move, like a prisoner in leg irons. I picture a gazelle racing across the desert. No, I say. I don’t think that’s strange at all.
