[ WP ] A world where people who die turn into objects based on their past life .

Marena and I speculated often, towards the end, about what her mono would be. It was perhaps the only way we could talk about her death at all, the one manner in which we could make acknowledging it bearable. The conversations, I suppose, were transformative in and of themselves. By then she was all bedsheets and plastic tubes, a series of unsteady beeps and gaseous pumping noises. It was as though in talking about it, she could become her mono while she was still alive, a process much more graceful and comforting than the real one: a vibrant, capable, beautiful woman made into an oversized infant in a matter of weeks. 
 
 Her pet theory was that she would be the trumpet we had bought at auction eleven years ago. It was the one great investment in our lives, our most intimate brush with fame. Vincent Bach Stradivarius, once played by Wynton Marsalis. It had cost us three years ’ worth of vacations, but Marena said that a high-value auction was at the top of her bucket list. If she couldn ’ t make something that would outlast her, she said, then the next best thing was to buy it, and keep it close to her like a lover. We could always go to Prague or Lyon when we retired. I balked at the time, and even after we had brought it home and offered it a place of prominence on the wall in the den I still wasn ’ t sure the purchase was well-advised. Later, when she got sick, I was thankful that we had fulfilled such a wish. But a part of me wished we had taken the trips instead. 
 
 I was certain that she would be her mother ’ s silver necklace with the pearl pendant. It was the only object she had taken home with her after the funeral, and she had worn it at every opportunity in the last years of our social lives, before we took to spending weekends in the house, reading together in the screened-in porch with mugs of black tea and a pair of ancient calico cats. Even six months before the hospital, I would still come into the bedroom sometimes and find her looking at it, standing over the box at her bureau, one hand still on the lid, taking long, deep breaths as though her mother ’ s smell might still linger over it. 
 
 She was neither of these. Instead, when the time came, when the beeps stopped and the tubes were removed, she was a teacup, white porcelain with threads of dark navy blue. I had never seen the cup before, had no idea where it came from or what its significance might be. On its underside were the initials GSP in exquisitely narrow script, but I knew no one by a name that might fit them. I went home, left the cup on the top shelf of the china cabinet, and, much later, went back to reading in the screened-in porch alone, pausing only occasionally to glance up and see her, beneath the Stradivarius, catching the evening sun on her handle. In the end, she would always be a mystery to me, but her company was constant, and her beauty was understated and delicate, and I loved having her with me.
