63.

In this dream, the light scours everything. It’s blinding. It’s so white it turns everything else into a shadow. Looking hurts my eyes, and I try to turn away, but I can’t.

The shadow of the pregnant woman slowly rises from the floor. I can see the dark blood dripping from her back. She shakes her head, as if refusing something.

“Why?” she asks in a quiet voice.

The light feels like razor blades across my eyeballs.

“Why did you shoot me?”

I didn’t, I want to say, but that’s not true.

“Why?” she asks again.

“You called me a Nazi.”

“Weren’t you? Weren’t you a Nazi?”

“Not a real Nazi.”

“They didn’t mean to hurt people either. Most of them were just doing their jobs.”

“But they hurt people.”

“And you didn’t? Look at me.”

She turns, and I can see the organs inside her body, make out the pulsing dark mass of her heart, which is slowing down. It’s hardly beating at all.

“Look at me,” she says again. “You did this to me. You. You. You.”

I keep waiting for the next beat of her heart, but it never comes.