Kimonos in the Closet

All the Dead

55 All the Dead I open the morning paper and turn to the obituaries and I’m surprised to see how many have died. Today’s contingent is the size of a large platoon or a marching band or a village a child might stumble upon in a fairy tale. Most of the dead didn’t know each other except perhaps in passing, though now they may be getting acquainted if they’ve ended up in the same afterlife. All over the city people are arranging flowers in their honor and dressing up in black and stuffing handkerchiefs in their pockets. The closets of the dead seem haunted and when you try on a pair of their shoes you feel a little ghoulish. Even after a few weeks it’s odd to speak of the deceased in the past tense. But given time they become like those birds that have gone extinct—no matter how much you whistle, they never whistle back. ...