He lay there so quiet. Any moment he would open his expressive eyes, make some dry comment and chuckle. He'd ask, "Why am I dressed in my best gear?" "Dad will get annoyed if he sees me wearing our favourite sweater" "I didn't get a chance to put it back before he returned from his trip" "What's the occasion that I finally get to wear my new, grey, wool, long pants?" We must look our best before descending into the deep, dark earth.

Mortician's are incredible, skilful magicians. They smooth away deep etched lines of torment and agony. The dearly departed are turned into caricatures. They are powdered and poofed. The autopsy scars are cunningly hidden. We are able to part with them easier; thankful that the horror is over for both of us. Relief floods over me when I see how beautiful they made him.

The same was done to me. My heart incised; my brain detached. My sanity and reason drained out like his blood. I am an empty shell. Only they forgot to bury me.
What melancholy parched the throat to thirst for such a deadly cocktail? He looked so handsome, my thirteen year old son. Did they remove his eyes? They seemed so small under the lids. His best feature, incredibly, brilliantly blue. You looked into them and felt as if you'd dived into a crystalline bottomless pool; never caring if you ever surfaced. Perhaps I imagined their beauty. Fourteen years I searched each face those eyes to see. An identical pair would provide the key. Will I never find them? The doctors never asked for donor organs. No other would see through his eyes. The poison must have contaminated every cell.

My mother reckoned that he grew too fast. A leggy seedling stretching for the sun. Agricultural poison effectively destroys weedy children as well.
I only had one regret. It was impossible to realise. I would have liked to have a shin bone to carve into a pendant to wear around my neck next to my skin. You can't destroy bone. The Maori do that don't they? I think they do, I'm not sure now because everything gets all mixed up. I forget stuff and get confused. Entire years have been misplaced.

He couldn't rest. Many times after holidays I lay in bed hearing footsteps up and down the hall. As if to say "welcome back, I missed you." But even these have stopped. I miss his ghost and feel completely desolate.

One day, not long ago an embryo began developing. At that same moment in the vestiges of my heart, a faint and distant pulse began to beat. The flash of energy jumped between synapse of absent neurones. Would she have the same dazzling, dreamy eyes that drown the soul?