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D u s t M o t e s |
"This has been a rather hard winter for all of us, so instead of one of my usual tales into the Unknown, I thought you might like a gentle ghost "story." One that you can read, bundled up in a blanket -- or whatever you bundle yourselves up in while at the computer -- and not have to worry about being terrified. "This is a gentle ghost story; a quiet story that might surprise you. "It was also the 1998 winner of the World Fantasy Award. "Hope you enjoy it." -- The Ghost Writer GOTHIC GHOSTS eds. Charles Grant and Wendy Webb, TOR Books, 1997. Why is it that all the architecturally overdone, Neo-Greco-inspired, Carnegie-endowed libraries look alike? The same towering canyons of words and ideas that press down on the back of your neck even if you keep your eyes lowered to the scuffed parquet beneath your feet ... the same milk-glass lights, cool green shades to minimize the glare, suspended over the banquet-size tables on thin cords from a ceiling so high it could be mistaken for the sky at twilight... the same windows, set high so as to be unobtrusive, so the outside world might be forgotten by those cloistered within... ...and the same shafts of dust-choked golden light that always seem to spill into the otherwise dark caverns despite the time of day. Or the month of year. When I was younger I used to love the shafts of light -- tiptapping on Buster Brown shoes from one radiant beam to the next until either my mother or the librarian would tell me to stop... or find the one I thought the brightest and twirl in it, my skirt lifting unladylike, until the dust swirled around me like a golden cloud. When I was younger. Now I only noticed the dust. Why the hell did I think coming here would be a good idea? I could have just stayed home and drugged myself into mental oblivion with pain medication and the midday soaps. Except I had already done that for the last eight months, ever since the tiny, hard pebble in my right breast turned out to be a monster I never even dreamt of back when I could still see the golden light and make the dust dance. Besides, home meant waiting for call that had been well-rehearsed beforehand to cheer me up, with pity so thick it would sound like static on the line. Or worse yet, it meant waiting for the calls that never came from those who thought that by acknowledging me the cancer would somehow seek them out. Either way it meant waiting for someone to remember I was, at least for the present, still alive. And I was tired of it. Just as I was tired of people who still had the luxury of having time to wait. When an old man in a pale gray suit brushed against my arm and looked as if he were about to say something, I moved out of the relatively bright foyer and into the book-lined twilight. The library was more crowded than I'd expected (or hoped) it would be on an early spring afternoon. A covey of teenage girls in Catholic school uniforms whispered to one another at a small table near the Information/Check Out counter. Middle-aged women in housedresses and older men (although none as nicely dressed as my would-be friend from the foyer) moved idly through columns of bookshelves or sat at the row of tables ... some reading bound volumes, some newspapers; some hunched over yellow, legal-sized notebooks furiously scribbling away, some gossiping while others listened; some (those dressed in layers of mismatched clothes) sleeping, heads on folded arms. An Hispanic boy of about twelve, obviously truant, slumped against the paneled wall near the history section and glared...at nothing in particular. Two women about my own age, one pushing a sleeping baby in a stroller with a squeaky wheel past the romance aisle, laughed. Why not? They had their whole lives in front of them. I could feel the sudden anger compete with the Valium I'd had for breakfast and self-consciously lifted my hand to brush the hair of my forehead. It was an old habit and one that hadn't died simply because I no longer had hair to push aside. My fingers touched the padded crown on the custom-made bandanna that one of the "Cancer Specialists" had handed me while a student nurse (young, bright, alive) shaved off the few wisps of auburn still rooted to my scalp. "It will grow back," the specialist informed me, smiling while she checked off her good deed on the clipboard she carried, "once the treatments are over." I remember that smile--forced, pitying, and more than just a little grateful that she wasn't the one being turned into a human cue ball. Or having to wear the god-awful flowered bandanna in public. Or dying. When I lowered my hand I noticed my fingers were trembling even though I couldn't feel it. I tried not to listen to the sound of my footsteps as I walked. They sounded hollower here than they did at home (or at the clinic)...less substantial. A little girl wearing a starched white party dress was standing in the pool of dusty sunlight in front of the children's section; turning slowly, arms outstretched...the same way I used to. Back when I still believed in the possibilities of "happily ever afters." When her slow dance finally turned toward me out eyes met... ...only for an instant... ...and then I moved on--quickly--ignoring the sorrow and pain I'd seen in her round green eyes the same way strangers (and friends) pretended to ignore the bandanna covering my head and the reason behind it. Whatever problem the child was having, it was nothing compared to mine. I got as far as the periodicals before stumbling and banging my right hip into a ladder-back chair. The resulting sound, unlike my footsteps, wasn't hollow or insubstantial...it bounced off the high ceiling and echoed through the darkened corridors like a thunderclap. Three women at the far end of the table looked up from the magazine recipes they were copying and glared at me. How dare I disturb them. Breathing as slowly as I could so I wouldn't attract any more attention by panting, I pulled out the chair I'd bumped and let my body collapse into it. The seat had the same hard polished, butt-numbing shape I remembered so well. Oh yeah, this was a lot better than curling up on the sofa in front of the tube. The women were still watching me. I could feel their eyes, like cobwebs against my skin, as I reached into the pile of magazines the librarian hadn't had a chance to put away, and instantly found myself leafing through articles and ads geared toward surviving the first "traumatic weeks" of motherhood. Right. I forced myself--face relaxed, hands trembling only slightly, fingers itching to claw out the photogenically enhanced smiles--to keep turning the pages. Pretending ...that somewhere in the future I really might consider having children... ...and that I really had a future... ...and the bandanna was only a fashion statement... ...and everything really would turn out "happily ever after" of I just wished upon a star or found the end of the rainbow or could be awakened from this dream by a handsome prince on a white horse--as long as the prince didn't mind bald princesses with one breast who might not be able to produce heirs to the throne that is. I got as far as a full-page ad showing a leggy "mother" in swirling gauze standing in a field of daisies smiling down at a nude baby in her arms while Disneyesque bluebirds and butterflies fluttered through a cerulean sky dotted with golden-edge rose-colored clouds. A white unicorn and her foal grazed in the cool blue mist just out of focal depth. The ad was for a diaper-rash medication. "A blatant attempt to capture the style of Maxfield Parish, don't you think?" a low voice suddenly rumbled from over my right shoulder. "Although I can't remember if he ever painted unicorns. I know he did angels, of course, but..." The legs of my chair scraped against the floor (again) as I jumped and I could feel a newer, more improved glare-fest coming from the far end of the tables as I turned. Oh, God. It was the old man in gray. I frowned and honed the edges of my glare to the razor's sharpness that had served me so well in late-night bar encounters and drunken office Christmas parties. Once upon a time.... --Go away. Leave me alone!-- So naturally he came around to the opposite side of the table and sat down across from me. His chair didn't scrape. "I am sorry to disturb you, but..." He had a clipped somewhere-back-East-with-money accent, but his voice was modulated more for the daylight world outside the library than inside it. God, the women at the end of the table must really be having a hissy fit. "...you can see me, can't you?" I think I nodded. Or maybe I just asked him what the hell he was talking about. Loudly. Either way he clapped his long-fingered hands and one of the women got up and stormed away. "You can...dear Lord, you really can see me. I told the others someone would come...someday, but... You don't know what this will mean to them. You still can see me, can't you?" He stopped talking and smiled at me, slowly lowering his hands to the tabletop. The polished wood showed a reverse image of the old man--deepening the gray silk of his jacket and the pink (Jesus, he was wearing rouge!) on his cheeks; and exaggerating the line of his square chine while making his pale blue eyes seem smaller and closer set than they naturally were. I found myself staring at the image instead of the man and slowly sliding my chair away from the table. Crazy people have always frightened me. And it was obvious that this old man, for all his East coast polish and implied wealth, was a well-bred loon. Asking me if I could see him...unless...Christ, I bet he was exposing himself under the table. This time I didn't care if my chair scraped or not. I stood up quickly and took a step toward the exit. The two other women had already fled in the direction their companion had taken, when he stood up. Right through the tabletop and its scattered display of magazines. My back teeth clinked together when I sat down again. I had seen stage magicians slice women in half, both horizontally and vertically, and one had even beheaded a woman and carried her head out into the audience where it winked and flirted silently on cue...but this didn't appear to be any kind of "illusion." The old man in gray silk and rouged cheeks had simply stood up into the table. Only no one had said "Abracadabra." And I was beyond applauding. He finally noticed me staring and sat down quickly--his jacket front and tie disappearing into the wood, then coming out whole when he sat back in the chair. "I am sorry," he said, straightening the line of his tie. "Please excuse me, it was just that I was so excited about finding you...." "Me?" I heard myself ask. "Well," he said, still loud enough to attract the attention of every librarian in the place, "someone like you...who is caught between life and death. Straddling the cosmic fence, so to speak. What is it? Cancer?" "Who are you?" The old man nodded as if I'd just confirmed what he suspected and laced his fingertips together beneath his chin, sighing softly like a college professor confronting a student on a less-than-brilliant term project. "And it must be in remission or else you wouldn't feel well enough to be here. Yes, of course, that probably explains why we don't see many of the dying here.... But, then again, why would somebody teetering on the edge of life want to visit a library? I would think it's be torture, to see all the books you might never have a chance to read. Augh, horrible thought. "May I ask why you came? Not that we're not grateful that you...." This time I didn't mince words. And I didn't whisper. "Who the HELL are you?" He looked up and blinked. "Oh my...I do get carried away sometimes, don't I. Think I'd learn after all this time." Squaring his shoulders, he leaned forward (shirt-front and tie sliding effortlessly into the table) and extended his right hand. "My name is Howard Roth and I've been dead seven years. High blood pressure, not enough exercise...you know the sort of thing." He paused and cocked his head to one side, pale blue eyes blinking. "Is there some--" "--thing I can do for you, ma'am?" The new voice took me by surprise and I yelped. Loudly. My voice rising to the shadowed ceiling and swirling through the dusty, golden light. When the echoes finally died, I heard chairs scraping and the sound of more than one pair of leather soled shoes heading toward the entrance. Quickly. I guess I'm not the only one who feels uncomfortable in the near vicinity of "crazies." Part of me wanted to find the people scurrying away and tell them that I was perfectly sane...dying, but sane; but it was all I could do to swivel toward the woman in the matching vest and chino short set standing next to me. And convince her. "Is there a problem?" she asked again when my eyes finally made the long journey from cinched-in waist to name tag (MS. MESSIE/ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN) to golden chain to golden hair to amber eyes. My first impression was that she should be draped over some tropical sea-drenched rock, modeling the latest in should-not-appear-in-public-without-liposuction swimsuit. God only knows what her first impression of me was... ...no, the tight almost-wrinkle around her peach-colored lips told me that much. "Yes," I said, pointing across to the old man despite the muttered instructions not to, "he's bothering me. Would you please tell him to leave me alone?" "I really wish you hadn't done that," Howard Roth sighed. "They might ask you to leave." "Me?" I turned and glared at him. "Why would they ask ME to leave?" But instead of answering, he shook his head and pointed to the assistant librarian. The amber eyes had darkened and the lines had deepened by the time I turned around. I must have looked the same when I first thought Howard Roth was simply a crazy old man and not a-- "I told you," he said softly--but still loud enough for Ms. Messie to hear. But there was no indication that she could. Or did. "The untouched living can't see us. Please, we desperately need to speak to you. Tell her it was a mistake or a side-effect of your medication. Please." "Um, ma'am," Ms. Messie said after another quick glance to what appeared to her to be an empty chair, "I really think I'm going to have to ask you to leave unless..." "You mean you didn't SEE him?" I said quickly, ignoring Howard Roth's holly (ghostly) groan. "The...man over by the newspaper rack. Oh, he's gone. But... he was EXPOSING himself...I think...I think he might have gone into the CHILDREN'S section." I'm not sure what it was--either the thought that a man would have to be a pervert to expose himself to a bald, dying woman or the quick mathematical rundown of the lawsuits that would occur if such a man displayed the "family jewels" to a minor--but the blond-haired, amber-eyed living woman actually mumbled an apology and hurried away. The sound of applause made me turn around. Howard Roth was beaming like a proud father. A DEAD proud father. "I am impressed, Miss..." The beam faded only slightly as he extended his hand the way he had earlier. "Dear me, in all the confusion I seem to have failed to ask your name." This time I reached out to take his hand. And watched my fingers pass through his as easily as he had passed through the top of the table. Only the tiniest chill lingered against the palm of my hand. I don't know why this bothered me, all things considered, but for a moment I forgot how to breath. When I finally remembered the air trapped in my lungs came out as a rush of words. "Leslie Carr and oh, God, you really are a ghost, aren't you?" Howard Roth, --ghost--, chuckled. "Yes, I am, my dear Leslie. Ah, Leslie...one of my favorite names. `A queen, too, is my Lesley,/And gracious, though blood-royal,/My heart her throne, her kingdom,/And I a subject loyal.' James Wittcomb Riley. Do you know his work? No? Ah, I am sorry to hear that. Marvelous poet...I can hardly wait to meet him. "Shall we go?" The chill that had touched my hand traveled up my arm and into the hollow left by my metastasized breast. "Go?" I asked. "Go where?" Howard Roth stood up and walked through the table instead of going around it. My, the things I have to look forward to. "To meet the others," he said, stopping at the junction where periodicals met current events and holding out his hand. The little girl in white came slowly around the corner and took his hand. No wonder she looked so out of place in the library. She'd been dressed for a funeral. Hers. If I had tried to stand at that moment I would have passed out. "It's all right, Minka," Howard Roth said to the dead child, "the lady can see you." A shy smile appeared at the corners of her mouth as she looked up. It was only when I saw her away from the dusty golden beam of light that I realized her cheeks had been rouged a shade lighter than the old man's. Maybe her family had used the same mortician that worked on Howard. I closed my eyes and covered them with a trembling hand. "Oh, God." "Yes, it is sad when someone is so young. Minka was only four." He clicked his tongue and I felt the chill against the scar tissue on my chest burrow beneath the smooth, taunt skin. "A horrible accident, her mother left her alone only for a moment in the tub...her baby sister had started crying...ah, well. She's been here fifty-three years--forty-nine years longer than she'd been alive." My hands dropped to my lap with an audible thump. --Fifty-three years!-- Here...haunting this place. "What am I supposed to do?" I asked, leveling myself unsteadily to my feet. The chill, like the cancer that had invaded my body, had finally worked its way into my heart. I couldn't feel it beating. Howard Roth patted the little girl's pale hand and smiled when he looked at me. They both seemed so real. So--how did he phrase it?--untouched. Alive. "Just listen," he said, then smiled to the little girl who had died decades before I was born. "All of us here left life...unexpectedly; either by accident or violence or simply by ignoring their doctor's advice. My dear Leslie, we died unprepared and so missed the opportunity to relate that one incident which made our existence on this plane worthwhile." Jesus, why hadn't my Sunday school teacher told me you had to pass a test to get into heaven? "And...you want --me--to listen to these...stories?" The ghost of Howard Roth winked at me. "Precisely." I took a step forward and felt the chill race into my legs. "But why here? And why me?" "I have already told you, my dear Leslie, why it is that you can see and hear us. And as for this place?" Another wink and he tucked the little girl's hand beneath his arm and began to walk them both toward the library's main room. "What better place to find someone to listen to stories?" So I followed them, the ghostly old man and child as they moved through the living as silent and invisible as the specks of dust dancing in the fading light, to a small alcove set far back along a section of shelved stacks labeled HISTORY/ANCIENT. Where the rest were waiting. My shoulder brushed against a thick volume covered in cracked red leather and toppled it from the shelf; but here, in this particular section, there was no one to notice. No one alive, that is. There must have been over two hundred of them in the alcove --standing ramrod straight or slumping comfortably against the shelves, a few even "sitting" at a small rectangular table near the back wall; talking quietly among themselves in voices hushed and calm...suitable for a library. I leaned against my own section of books, listening to them...catching the occasional word or phrase (dull, mundane stuff actually--more concerned about the chances of a certain baseball team making it to the World Series and how much gas prices had gone up since that particular speaker's death than in questioning the cosmic joke that had trapped them here)...until, one by one, they noticed me. "My dear friends," Howard Roth said, shooing the little girl toward a strikingly beautiful black woman in red serge, "this is Leslie Carr who, out of the kindness of her soul and despite great personal suffering, has come to listen." I have to admit, that getting a standing ovation from ghosts was something I never thought to achieve. Or even hoped for. When the summer storm of applause trickled down to a few perfunctory claps, Howard Roth stepped forward and offered me his arm. Winking as I tried to balance my living flesh against his...and winking again at the little girl in white when she giggled at my obvious lack of skill. "Who would you like to hear first?" he asked after I'd taken a seat at the table. They huddled before me--silent, smiling; some with hands clasped in what looked like prayer, others sullen as if this was too easy a solution. I was like a queen, surveying her loyal subjects...like that woman in the poem Howard Roth had quoted earlier. And then I saw the Hispanic boy who had glared at me when I first entered the library. He was slumped against a row of volumes he probably wouldn't have read even if he'd lived...the angry look making him look older than he was. Than he had been. When he died. Yeah...I was queen all right. Leslie the First, Queen of the Dead. Huzzah. Without thinking, I brushed my fingers against the lock of hair that should have been there. But wasn't. At least my leaving wouldn't be unexpected. Tugging the front of the bandanna lower on my forehead, I took a deep breath and jerked my chin toward the angry boy I had originally thought was only truant from school. "Him," I told Howard in case there was any doubt, "the boy over there." Howard nodded in agreement. "Berto, Leslie has chosen you first." It was obvious from his reaction that the boy had seldom been chosen first for anything...except, perhaps, death. He suddenly stood taller, his backbone unkinking itself almost audibly as the angry mask slipped from his face. Beneath it lay the features of a frightened child--eyes wide, mouth partially opened, cheeks pale and sunken in, with no trace of rouge or mortician's craft. How long had making-up the corpse been standard practice? Since the '30s? The '20s? Jesus, how long how he been here...waiting for someone to listen? "Come along, Berto," Howard said, no trace of impatience in his voice--but why should there be, he had all the time in the world. "Tell Leslie what made you special." Berto came forward, the cuffs of his trousers hanging over the tops of ratty-looking sneakers, his hands all but lost in the unhemmed coat sleeves. His death must have been unexpected...his family hadn't even had time to tailor a hand-me-down. "I...." He stopped and cleared his voice like a child forced to recite at a school's Founder's Day program. A breeze, possibly from some recessed air-conditioner vent I couldn't feel, began ruffling his oversized suit. "I...I saved a dog from gettin' drown." That was it? I don't know what I expected to hear--maybe something along the lines of his being a musical prodigy or being the soul support for his family or even having died while rescuing blind orphans from a burning building. Just something...a little more SPECTACULAR than saving a dog from drowning, for God's sake. But Berto didn't seem to notice my obvious lack of enthusiasm. He was smiling now, his face glowing. Christ, he really was glowing! And it wasn't just his face. Dusty gold light, as if a window had suddenly been opened in the row of books, poured down over Berto--blurring the fine edges of his body as the breeze rippled and tugged at him. "It was just a puppy," Berto continued, and I found myself leaning forward, straining to hear. It was almost as if the light, which was now so bright that it softened the lines of his body into a fuzzy blur, was doing the same thing to his voice. Squinting against the glare, I pushed the bandanna away from my ears and held my breath. "This man he was really mean n'he'd got this puppy n'was gonna drown it 'cause he didn't want no more dogs..." The light became an incandescent flame with Berto as its white-hot core. "...so he puts it in this flour sack n'...throws it in the river back of his house only...I see it...n' go in t'get it. It...was a real...little puppy...but...I...saved...its "...life..." The light blinked out taking Berto, whose one glorious moment of life had been to save a mongrel puppy, with it. I felt the tears strike the back of my hands before realizing I was crying. It'd been so long--eight months exactly--that I thought I'd forgotten how. "Thank you for Berto," Howard Roth said softly. "Who would you like to hear next?" I didn't have to think. Swallowing hard, I pointed to the little girl in white who'd been waiting fifty years. "A loving choice, dearest Leslie. Minka, you're next." She was already glowing even before she stopped before me. "I scare rat away from bebe sister." She giggled and was gone. That fast. No muss, no fuss. As if the light was as eager for her as she for it. --Good-bye, Minka,-- I whispered silent to the empty air in front of me. --God bless.-- "Next," I said out loud, and smiled at an old black man in a shiny blue suit. I went back to the library every day for a month--greeting Ms. Messie at the doors when they opened and bidding her a polite farewell when she finally made her way back to the HISTORY/ANCIENT section to kick me out each night. I know she thought I was crazy, but now it didn't matter...nothing mattered by the ghosts' stories. Not that listening didn't take something out of me, it did. Sometimes I was so numbed by what they felt was the greatest moment of their lives ("Ah returned dis twenty dollah bill ah found on da floor o'da market, ah did." "I shared the last piece of birthday cake with my brother." "I lit a candle in church for the homeless." "I got an A-plus on my last spelling test and a gold star and the teacher put it up on the wall.") that I could barely stumble home. But sometimes...no, every time, in that last moment before the light blinked out, I was able to feel some of their joy...their peace. I don't know when I stopped being afraid to die, but I think it was about a week or two before I noticed that Howie (as he preferred to be called, probably because it made me laugh) and the remaining ghosts were becoming transparent. "What's happening?" I hissed, dropping my Thermos of juice and sack lunch to the table before nearly collapsing into a chair. "Why do you LOOK like that?" Howie lifted his hands and looked at them, turning them palms up, then palms down. "What's different from the way I look?" he finally asked. "You're..." Christ, how do you say this delicately to a ghost? "...a little...glassy." "Glassy?" I didn't think it was going to be easy. "You know...diaphanous, sheer, translucent...dammit, Howie, you're all fading." He looked back at his hands. The others just looked worried. "Are you sure, Leslie?" I nodded. "Forgive the comparison, but all of you are starting to look like overlays in a B-rated horror movie." Howie clasped his transparent hands together and brought them to his chin. "I'm so happy for you, Leslie," he said. I shook my head. "What do you mean?" "Don't you understand, my dearest Leslie? We're fading because you're slipping from the shadows back into the light. You're going to live, Leslie...and the living can't see us." "Oh, God." I leaned forward in my chair, my fingers wringing creases into the flowing shirt of the sundress I had chosen on a whim that morning. I had felt better in the last few weeks--stronger...Jesus, alive. "Howie? Oh, God, Howie, I can barely see you." "It's all right," he whispered back, "we can wait." "NO!" Now I know Ms. Messie must have heard that, hell, the whole damned library probably did, but I didn't care. All they could do was throw me out. Or try to. "Look, there still may be enough time. I can still see you...a little. It's like you're blending into the background. Quick, tell me your story, Howie." "No." His voice was even softer than a whisper. "Miriam...first." Miriam Horowitz, of the Bronx Horowitzes, glided forward and lowered her blue-tinted head toward mine. "I...let...my...sister...marry...the...man...I...loved... according...to...our...father's...wish--" And she was gone. But this time there was no heavenly luminescence. At least none that I could see. "Hurry," I told the others, squinting as their outlines became more diffused. "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hear you." Their voices were barely audible, competing suddenly with other muted sounds I hadn't noticed before: the hum of traffic in the street outside, the rattle of book carts, the fluttering swish of pages being turned. "Hurry." "...gold metal...in junior...Olympics..." "...read to...my son...every...night..." "...let my mother...pick out my...wedding dress..." And on. And on. Their voices so soft I could hardly hear them over the beating of my own heart. But I listened. And nodded. And smiled when they ceased to be. And prayed that the light I could no longer see had finally come for them. "Howie?" The alcove looked empty. Emptier than I'd ever seen it. "Oh, Jesus--Howie? Howie, where are you?" There! A faint ripple in the air just to my left...like a heat mirage...no, like the swirling cloud of dust I used to dance with as a child. "Howie, is that you?" The faintest hint of a pale gray suit and bright blue eyes hovered in the air before me. He was smiling. "You look like the Cheshire Cat," I told him, "but I can still see you. Quick, Howie, tell me the one thing in your life that made you special." His lips moved silently. God, no...not yet. Please, not yet. "Say it again, Howie," I said, raising my own voice as if it were some sympathetic volume control. "Slower." "...--...said...my--Leslie...that...THIS--the...-- proud of..." "What...this?" Very slowly, the ghost of Howard Roth lifted his hand and touched my cheek. The chill lingered for only a second but it was enough. "...this..." he whispered, and disappeared. I don't know how long I sat there, listening to the hushed muttering and shoe-clacks and fluttering of pages, but it seemed like a long time. Not as long as Howie and the others had waited, but long enough to accept the fact that I was going to live. For a while yet, anyway. And maybe...just maybe when my time did come, if I was caught unaware, someone would come to listen to me. I left the library in slow, even steps...pausing only long enough in a beam of golden light to twirl the dust motes--and whoever might be standing there unnoticed--into a dance. Of life. |
