11/09/2026
I dreamed that you were alive again, and for a little while, the world was kind enough to let me believe it. We spoke of ordinary things. You laughed at something I said, and I remember thinking how foolish I had been to miss you so terribly when you had only been away. Then I woke, and the years came back all at once. I lay there with my eyes closed, begging sleep to take me back, willing to surrender another lifetime for five more minutes. There is a cruelty in waking that I never understood before losing you. Every morning, I must learn your death again, and every morning, some helpless part of me still wonders why you haven’t called.
Oracle of Sothis
Artist: Carlos Bonvalot, 1918.