I had a dream last night in which I spoke to Death. He thanked me for talking to him. Apparently, no-one had ever discussed anything with him in all the time living organisms have existed only to die. We talked of family, of aspirations and of friendship, which seemed to him to be very important, but still somehow lacking. Lack was there for him, one of the only true, everlasting companions that Death had in that dream. Lack enjoys the words I send, since I send them to both lack and death, both species of my friend in this forum. In the dream the three of us talked and drank wine; we even sang. I ought not have been surprised that Death knew how to sing a Homeric epic properly, but I was. At the end of our time spent together the three of us embraced. It was as if they invited me to return and celebrate a kind of kinship, if that was possible.
I asked both of them if they would consider a diminishment of their obligation to the order of things. They both lost their grins.
"No," they said together in the most serious tone.
- "Will you not even consider it?", I asked.
They looked at one another very briefly, and they turned away from me. Then I awoke.