Introduction

When the darkness settles and you inevitably come to again, after your last breath is expelled

what is there?

are you dead? is that it?

is that where it ends, not just your meager life but all of it?


or perhaps . . .

there is more

perhaps you reach out through the darkness, the haze

you find purchase, another hand—worn and thin as though it was once the hand of a person

have pity on me, you think. You seek to cry it out but find that you cannot

still

there is some small pity left in this world

the hand grips your own tight and you are pulled from the depths