UW Owl - Amidst a Fuligin Cloak
They wrote to each other every day, over email, but only to describe their lunches. "Grapes, tortilla chips, and a pickle," she wrote, in reply to his "Chicken sandwich, sesame seed crackers, and an apple." They couldn't even remember how they had started this method of correspondence, but it didn't matter--both were of the opinion that lunch, not breakfast, was the most important meal of the day, and that one's choice of lunch said a lot about character, personality, even morality. When he died, she didn't find out for sure (though she suspected something was wrong when she didn't get an email for a whole week) until receiving an email from his brother, who had figured out the password for the account. "Sorry," the brother said. She was understandably distraught. What could she have done? Anything different? She didn't know. She hadn't known him face to face, she couldn't have picked him out in a crowd. She still kept a record of every lunch, though she didn't send it anywhere, and kept another record of what she thought he might've eaten, had he still been alive. She wanted to turn his last lunch list, "Club sandwich, chips, slice of key lime pie," into a still life, but she couldn't paint, and so settled for reenacting that lunch each year on the anniversary of his death.[Info on New Birth of Old Death]