Elegy

"My chances," she said, "are sixty percent to survive and forty percent to die." And then she dropped into the talk about how life is so worthwhile and how she feels sorry for her mother, above all--the banal talk that's inevitable. I wanted to do so many things, I had so many plans, and so on. She began telling me about how foolish all her anxieties of a few months backed seemed, the worries about work and friends and clothes, and how this had put everything in perspective, and I thought, No, nothing puts anything in perspective.

Alas, they left that part out. It's the best part, damn it.