us take me, to sacrifice myself would be noble. But just ahead, the sun breaks impossibly through the foliage. Shards of light fall on a madrone tree, a mammoth one, clinging to what appears to be solid stone, the base of it broad enough to cradle me if I choose to lie on it. Its dying branches spread out in intricate networks, branches sprouting from branches, like those old hollow dolls which house smaller and smaller dolls. Each branch stretches in an uncharted direction, each indicating a distinct destiny. I hear my son call again, Come on, come on -- he is far from me now -- and my sister, equally far, in a different place, calling my name, the sound of it as bright and direct and heartbreaking as when we were young. And with that I remember, one day in the park, my father smiling at me with his washed-out, kindly face, my sister yelling all our names as she chased insects and smudged her knees with the green from the grass, my mother
 | | reading me stories of magical monkeys and demons, these tales always about journeys fraught with incidents, seemingly never-ending, and my mother's stomach would rise and fall with her breaths, as if she was instantly pregnant, back to normal, pregnant again, back and forth. Unable to move, I stare at this tree, the wind stopped, all sounds erased, even the steps of the unseen stranger, even the crashing surf of my headache. And then, ever so slowly, I can hear the ground pulse beneath me, thousands of heartbeats piled on top of each other, whispering:
When nothing is left of my body but ashes, even then, my love and hate will always burn.
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