Kurt Vonnegut looked old.  He shuffled by my booth at the antiques show, eyes bleary, a bit of the ancient walrus about him.  A walrus in a rumpled London Fog, neither stylish nor especially interesting.  I had only rhinestone jewelry to offer.  Not walrus fodder at all and he moved on.  It was he, all right.  And he was it.  I began rereading his works that night.

     Vonnegut has now been dead for five years.  How did I not know this?  Why was I not summoned?  In my egocentric universe all those I have revered --- some shyly, some more blatantly ---  maintain themselves on this planet in their respective roles attendant to my needs alone and I am confronted by my own mortality when one of them is so disloyal as to die.

     I wish Vonnegut had purchased a whimsical rhinestone pin.  I would have given him such a deal.