i.
It’s so hard for us to put our loved ones back into the ground.

Before yielding to the truth that we must all live and then consequently die, we bury each other in nice coffins. They have a silk interior lining and expensive cushions for our undead comfort. We’re dressed in nice clothes, albeit ones we would never wear if we could still protest these kinds of things.

We are not allowed to be given back to the earth, not entirely. If anything, we’re kept from it.

ii.
Another thing about the rain in California is that it stays damp, more drowned than Washington afterwards. When it pours, the leaves become congested with water in the gutters and the cracks in the sidewalks stay flooded with veins of muddy rainwater. The pavement remains a few shades darker from all the moisture it’s soaked up, even a day or so after the rain.

iii.
“Dogtooth” has creeped into my subconscious so severely these past few days. I had a dream last night after watching those wolf hunting videos that I was running with or from something, the wolves maybe. I think we were being hunted. Probably by men, something I don’t need to be dreaming to be afraid of. I remember that feeling, too. We were all very scared.

We landed in a riverbank, the bed nearly dried or otherwise frosted over. In between hurtful breathing, I noticed laying in the bank, nearly so blended with the ghastly scenery that I almost missed it: a skeleton of a great elk. It’s antlers fanned out from the base of its skull like the end of a fallen tree branch.