I am no longer the sort of person another will mention in passing with description and caricature. No longer the sort of person who, if brought up in conversation by others, will be lauded with an ah and a yes. I knew her, she was like so and so, and did sorts of things like this, I enjoyed these qualities, were confused by some others, and disliked many more. I have passed from an individual to stastic, to a person I knew or knew of who died and did die of cancer, which is met with a shake of head, an apology, and another one, who this other knew who had died from another sort of cancer.

I learned this without fanfare under long flourescent bulbs above white linoleum, confused and naked beneath the slim blue gown the doctors had me draped. What nobody told me, how could they, is that the phrase "You have cancer," is avoided, replaced with "We found something," spoken in the voice of Hollywood death, which is to say, soberly and without pause. They inform you of their suspicions, the data which is actually yourself, the next steps, before giving you a printout of the same, knowing well that you cannot possibly be listening with a stare that passes through them and instead toward something you cannot place or fathom but is nevertheless coming.

Here onward is just withering.

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