A story is told about two elderly sisters who made a pact that the first to die would, as her death approached, begin talking to the other sister at her bedside. The dying sister was to tell everything she heard and saw, attempting to talk without ceasing up to and, if at all possible, past the point of death. The sisters did not dare to hope that they could penetrate the dark edge of existence. Rather they wished to offer the comfort of knowing they were not lost to each other at the end of time. Their pact was thwarted, however, when the first sister choked to death on a clump of ice accidentally aspirated as she drank ice water. Wide eyed with dismay at the unexpectedness of it all, facing both her sister and her death, and of course unable to speak, she was nonetheless bemused at suffocating on something in the process of disappearing.
(Michael Joyce)
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