If I Still Lived In Russia, I'd

Freedom Is Anathema To Dreams Nurtured In Captivity.

My Hair Would Continue To Gray, And Then One Day, It Would Fall Out Entirely, And Then, On A Day Meaninglessly Close To The Present One, Meaninglessly Like The Present One, I Would Disappear From The Earth. And All These Emotions, All These Yearnings, All These Data, If That Helps To Clinch The Enormity Of What I'm Talking About, Would Be Gone. And That's What Immortality Means. It Means Selfishness. My Generations Belief That Each One Of Us Matters More Than You Or Anyone Else Would Think.

The Love I Felt For Her On That Train Ride Had A Capital And Provinces, Parishes And A Vatican, An Orange Planet And Many Sullen Moons -- It Was Systemic And It Was Complete.

I Was Very, Very Sick When I Was Growing Up In Russia. The Ambulance Constantly Came To Our House. I Had Horrible Asthma That Is Easily Treated In America, But They Didn't Even Have Inhalers Back In Russia.

In Contravention Of My Belief That Any Life Ending In Death Is Essentially Pointless, I Needed My Friends To Open Up That Plastic Bag And Take One Last Look At Me. Someone Had To Remember Me, If Only For A Few More Minutes In The Vast Silent Waiting Room Of Time.