I woke up this morning, it was a fine day. It was hard these days to get my old bones going, but despite the pain I arose out of bed. I felt a slight headache. The skies had a pinkish purple hue; a strange color. Very unusual. I wanted to go down to the DMV and get my ID renewed. I stood in line for hours. Finally I was able to talk to the guy at the front window. He said they were low on staff today when I asked him why the long wait. I told him I needed my senior ID card renewed. I told him I was a veteran. But they could not find a past record of my ID. Maybe you have a record of my friend Bill Lee, I said. He was a veteran too. He could vouch for me. So they showed me his record. They had a list of places he had served. I told him where I had served with him. But it wasn't listed. I'm sorry, the guy said, you are not eligible to renew your ID.

I decided to go visit the department of veterans affairs. Maybe they would have my records. Sure enough, they did, and they had Bill Lee's records too, on their computer. I looked through the list of the places he had served, and there it showed where we served together.

In fact, they showed me a room where I could connect with him and talk to him. It was a computer connection, and as they connected me to a port, it felt like two rail lines connecting. That's how it looked in my mind, anyway. These days it feels like these virtual meetings are not fully real. Well, you decide (about this one). It is real nice to see you again Bill, I said. Sure is nice to see you too, he said. We had some real fun times together. Why don't you drop by and see me? He gave me his address and I walked over. The house had a huge stairway in front. It seemed to go on forever. My old bones couldn't take the climb, so I gave up.

When I got back down, the mail man came by. I saw he had a letter. I glanced at it, and it was a funeral notice about Bill. I remembered, I had recently lived there too. How could I forget? Or maybe I had just visited there some time ago. My memory isn't so good these days. So, feeling sad, I asked the mailman if he had a letter for me too. I told him my name. It seemed rather strange to ask him. But in fact, he smiled and said that he had another notice, addressed to a friend of mine. It was a notice of my funeral. So I figured I would walk over to his house and deliver it in person. OK, the mail man said. I'll go with you. And we walked together into the purple mist. It felt nice, and I was grateful.