In an alternate universe, I am gone.

I am naught but a bit of leftover ash and bone in a pretty little jar on a mantle of a strange kitchen fireplace in Altamonte Springs, Florida.

What once was my body rattles on the mantle as my nieces thunder by on the tile floors. As children are wont to do, those delightful little girls, right now just five and six years old, run like a heard of elephants through the house. As often as they can, they are shrieking in glee and doing most things at maximum volume.

Since human cremains are so high in salt, phosphate, and calcium, while also having a high pH, maybe I’ve been diluted and mixed into the enriched soil beneath the blueberry bushes I convinced my brother to purchase that one trip to Home Depot we took years ago.

In any case, I have shuffled off this mortal coil in this other world. Maybe I have been reborn as a chubby and beloved kitten or a feisty little foal with mischief in my heart. I am gone, but not forgotten. Dead, but not lost to memory, yet.

In another universe, I am but ash in a jar on the mantle of a fireplace.