2003-10-14 1:18 pm

The Dash Inbetween

Number 20 and I lean on the gate to her house. She sucks on the tiny stub of a roll-up and speaks.

"Listen," she says, "the thing is - I mean tombstones. They have a date, and then a little dash, and then another date. And that little dash inbetween is your life!" She looks at me beseechingly. "I'm nearly sixty. I don't want my life to be a little dash."

I agree that the dashes are usually very small.

"And listen," she goes on. "Do you know what they asked the last prophet?"

I tell her I don't.

"How long is it until Judgement Day?" she replies. "And he said: 'The distance from one of my eyebrows to the other.' And the thing is, that distance is the same length as one of those little dashes."

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