Cold Open

The year opens with a death bed scene.

New Year's Eve weekend, a flurry of forwarded emails documenting the rapid decline of one of my aunts. One of my dad's sisters. Someone I actually have some fond childhood memories of. I skim through the grim details of these emails: a manifest of organ failures and vain measures to ease pain.

January 2, 2011, 11:45am on the other side of the world, she passed away.

I don't know how to feel.

I want to get away from people for a while.