Sarala,

I just want you to know that no one could ever compare to you.

I don’t know what death actually is, but from what I’ve learned — studying, asking people, and especially talking with indigenous people wherever I go (because “university educated” people are usually too arrogant to admit they don’t know everything) — I think death and dreaming are connected somehow. I can feel it.

I don’t know how, though. But when you wake up from the most vivid dreams, you quickly forget. And I’ve said this before, but what if you were somehow in another place for real in a dream — a place with different physics, a different universe, where everything is just different. And you live an entire life there. Or for a long time. And then you die in that world, and you wake up here. Maybe that’s something to do with death or dying.

Because maybe the people who were in your dream just think you died. What if a dream you had a year ago — to the people in that dream, you died, and they’re still mourning you, while you’re here and don’t even remember.

If I shoved you back into a random dream from three months ago, would you even remember a thing from it? Maybe that’s something to do with being “born” — we come here with no memory of this place, but every ancient culture talks of previous lives.

What if, when we die here, we just go to another life, and this entire existence feels like a vivid dream for a short while — then an hour or two into waking up, or “death,” we don’t even remember or care. But the people still here will think we died and mourn us for a long time. Meanwhile, we’re in a whole other existence, just thinking of this life as some crazy dream. And remember — dreams never feel crazy while you’re dreaming. It’s only after we wake up that we realize how strange it was.

What if that’s exactly how we’ll feel about this reality when we die?

I don’t know. I know I sound crazy, and I know I’m rambling. But I can feel it inside my body that dreaming has something to do with death and birth. I can feel it.

And I intend to find out. And I intended to be able to show you.

And I will not go into whatever is next unless you come with me.

Otherwise, I guess I’ll end up as a ghost wandering around, scaring people, whispering your name — like a creepy ghost story.

I will not leave this place, whatever it is, without you. Ever.

Yours always