I dreamt I died and went to heaven. When I got there, they told me there was no such thing as print media. They said: books are physical things, but we, as incorporeal spirit beings, have no fingers to turn the pages. I asked if they had heard about digital media. They laughed at my naivety and reminded me that I would still need fingers to touch a touchscreen. What do we do for reading, then? They could tell I was distressed. Reading? We don’t read; we remember. So for a thousand years I lay on a beach remembering all the books I had read when I was alive. I was glad I had read many books, for my remembrances were rich and gave me pleasure. But when I began my second thousand years, I realized that I was weak when it came to poetry. I had read enough of it, but found it difficult to remember. They commiserated with me. Yeah, they said, it’s a bitch trying to memorize poetry—especially anything written after the 20th century. So now I sit with sand up my crack, a little bit bored, cursing those bastards, those poets, for leaving none of their words lodged in my head.
