Whilst lazing about in bed this morning, drifting in that half-sleep, I was listening to the introduction to a radio interview with Geraldine Brooks.  I conflated her introduction with an earlier story about cancer survivors, and imagined that Mrs. Brooks was herself battling cancer.  I was sitting in a barn with her, up on Marth’a Vineyard, and as she spoke I watched the whisps of vaporum animae or was it vitalis vaporum slipping from her lips.  I did not want to see her go, nor did I want to see that esssence be lost.  I pulled her towards me and held her tight to me as that mist drifted into my own nostrils.