Maybe this is why I sleep only a few hours a month. I don't want to die again. This has become clearer and clearer to me recently, a desire so sharp and focused I can hardly believe it's mine: I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay.

The past is made out of facts...I guess the future is just hope.

I'm not a general or a colonel or a builder of cities. I'm just a corpse who wants not to be.

Here it comes. My inevitable death, ignoring me all those years when I wished for it daily, arriving only after I've decided I want to live forever.

I crush her against me. I want to be part of her. Not just inside her but all around her. I want our rib cages to crack open and our hearts to migrate and merge. I want our cells to braid together like living thread.

Just... ate," M says, frowning at me a little. "Two days...ago." I grab my stomach again. "Feel empty. Feel... dead." He nods. "Marr...iage.

I think for a minute. Watching my wife fade into the distance, I put a hand on my heart. "Dead." I wave a hand toward my wife. "Dead." My eyes drift toward the sky and lose their focus. "Want it...to hurt. But...doesn't." Julie looks at me like she's waiting for more, and I wonder if I've expressed anything at all with my halting, mumbled soliloquy. Are my words ever actually audible, or do they just echo in my head while people stare at me, waiting? I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses.