Mortality

I dreamed I lived a life from its beginning to its... end.
I was born. The doctor snipped my only physical proof of the bond I shared with my mother. My father held me, and cried for the first and last time of his existence. I grew. I spoke. I walked, and soon I ran. I discovered things and feelings and became aware that I had a place in the world, even if I didn't yet know where that place was, if I would ever know.
Then, I became even more self-aware. It was so sudden, yet subtle. I realized I was supposed to want the opposite sex, that I was supposed to become someone because as yet I was no one, that I needed to earn this, my place in the world. I realized I was supposed to do all this, so I set out to do it.
I dreamed I went places, met people, did what I was supposed to do and made myself into somebody, even though I had already been 'made.'
I dreamed I aged, and my aging hadn't waited for when I had thought I was done living. It was so sudden, yet subtle.
I dreamed I was surrounded by familiar, comforting faces as I took my last few breaths, and as I spoke my last few words, they listened.
But it didn't matter, I was dying.
Then I died.

A million years seemed to pass before I woke up. Maybe they did.
I ran to my sister's room to recount to her my fascinating dream.
Lila listened to me like my imagined kin listened to my last words, respectfully hanging on every word. Finally, she said, "You bin readin' too many hist'ry texts boy!" and she gave me that smile that meant she was teasing, well, somewhat anyway.
"But what does it mean?" I asked.
"What does what mean?"
"My dream. Was it all for nothing? All those memories?"
"What on Earth- brutha, you's bin actin strange lately, how abouts I make us breakfast?"
Lila could cook some incredibly delicious food. In my dream, it was my mother who did all the cooking, not my sister. She was too...young.
"How old are you, sister?"
"Old? Who you callin' old, brutha? No body gits old anymoa."
"Well that's just what they used to call measuring age, how many times someone saw the Earth go around the sun, how many revolutions they had seen. " I recited the text from memory, "They called each time a year from the day they were born."
"Now is that so? You learn da mos' ma'volous thin's in them hist'ry texts, ya know dat, brutha?"
"So do you know how old you are, sister?"
"No, I guess I don't." Lila took out some bowls and a pan for making pancakes.
"Do you know how old I am?"
"Does it matter?" She set down the pan and crossed her arms, looked me right in the eyes. I couldn't hold my gaze for more than a second, suddenly fascinated by the socks I was wearing. "Hunny I read my hist'ry texts too a while befo' we's met up, an' I learnt they used ta use numbas to put people down. They used age as an excuse ta treat you like shit. Made bein' able ta live awful hard to come by, bein' labeled like dat." She picked the pan back up.
"What do you mean?"
"I dunno, brutha. But nobody can be treated 'a same when e'rybody gots a numba attached to 'em, unless all's of 'em gots 'a same numba."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I started to walk back to my room.
"Where you goin, don't you want breakfast? Come on, help Lila set the table."
To me, this sounded like 'I forgive you.'

"I saw eighty years." I told her, shoving a mouthful of syrup-soaked pancake in my mouth.
"Beg yer pardon?" Lila said, about to take a drink of milk
"In my dream. I saw the Earth go around the sun eighty times."
"That's too bad. Don't sound like much."
"It seemed like more, in my dream."