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Dehydration

Page 2 of 4

She leaned back in her seat, and we sat with our heads inclined to each other. Her roots grew in white, but since the black dye suited her complexion I guessed it must have been her natural colour. I felt her breath on my skin; I hated to be breathed on but at least she was quiet.

The coach left Moose Jaw. The land lay smooth like a bed made of tufted chenille bleached by the sun.

A crazy wind got in the fields; I saw a funnel of dust spring three feet off the ground and whirl. I said, "Look," and Denise rolled her head that way to watch. The flat, treeless land did its hypnotic work on us, passed same on same, turned time and distance into nonsense.

"Where do you want your ashes scattered?" Denise asked after an hour had gone and we were approaching Chaplin.

"Where?"

"I want mine poured into the source of the Fraser," she went on, "so I can travel along its course and finish in the Pacific."

"You'd never need a water bottle there," I quipped.

"Rivers are life sources," she replied sternly. "If I can't be a life source, I want to be in a life source."

I frowned at the intimation. "I haven't decided."

"Arny said 'Why not the ocean in the first place?' She could do it then, you see, drive to the coast because her cousin lives in White Rock. She could take me to the end of the pier and pour me over."

I counted the telephone poles in town and wondered how to lighten the conversation. "Suppose you'd need a mountain climber to get to the source of the Fraser."

"Have you made a will?" she asked.

"I'm only twenty-four!"

But I didn't say it that hard, not to make her head jerk away as if I'd punched her. She sucked her lips into her teeth, which stretched the puffy skin under her eyes.

"I really can't go without water," she said.

"There's a coke in my bag," I offered.

"No coke," she said. "Coffee, tea, cola, chocolate, alcohol-they're all diuretic. Make you increase urine production so you lose what you take in."

"Oh."

"Crazy, isn't it? The human body is eighty per cent water, but what do people drink? Coffee, tea, soft drinks, beer. anything but water."