The Ancestor

We lay on the turf in the cold and the dark. We lay bundled up with hats and scarves and gloves, we lay close but not touching. It was a meteor shower and we lay there together, in the dark, in the cold.

Elisabeth, I said.

Yes, she said.

The sky was falling.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, I said, about the idea of being dead. Like I'm not worried that I'll die tomorrow, but I just think about that one day I won't be alive, you know. And like what that will be like, because it will be forever. Infinity years of my being dead, and that'll be it. Life will go on but I just. I won't. I won't go on. I'll be gone. I have been up late and very anxious.

She took a deep breath and then let it out and her breath was tiny icicles in the air.

We saw that dead raccoon on the way over here, she said.

I turned my head to look at her.

I'm just saying it could be worse, she said, still staring at the sky, and then she took my glove in her glove and I looked back up as well. I don't think what she offered was much in the way of comfort, but it was something to think about, at least.