Old Babes in the Wood

by Margaret Atwood

We resist the notion that we’ll become mere handfuls of dust, so we wish to become words instead. Breath in the mouths of others.

Would you rather be memorialized as your actuality, warts and all, or as an enhanced version? Be honest now.

Nell counts from 1908. She counts like this for everyone she meets, wanting to know what they might have lived through before she met them. When were they ten, when fifteen, when thirty?

What was it like to

stand looking up at the stars, fearing that your beloved on the other side of the world might then—right that minute!—be bleeding into a swamp, gasping for his last breath? And to do that day after day and month after month and year after year—almost

You asked me how I was doing, another social pleasantry. No one wants an honest answer to that one.

Which dwindling was the worst? Was it better to have witnessed a lingering fadeout, with pain but with lots of time to say goodbye, or on the other hand was a sudden stroke or heart failure preferable, easier for him, harder for you?

Why was it less wasteful for a croissant to go through her digestive system than through the compost pile? It was not.