It's you,” David says, “our queen with your crown, going into some body of water where we cannot follow you.

A fearful sob suddenly rises in my throat as I think of what it will be like without her, to not have her warm chest to lie against, to not have her kind face to look into, lost in a darkness without a mother to turn to and her here, daughterless.

Why must we be so restricted by language, these ruined tongues! These twenty-six letters- how can that explain this agony? How could we ever endeavor to prove what we are here for- through such combinations? Death is just a word someone invented for what happens at the end of a person’s life. It’s only a word: if there was no word for it we wouldn’t be so worried!

I told her that the pills will let her slip off and that when a person dies there comes a long clean sleep.” “That’s all,” Alexandria whispers, echoing after her, “a long clean sleep.