"Sandeep! Come on! We're going to be late!" Do you want me to go dressed as an oilseed field, mother?" Sandeep replied through the fabric of the clean...shirt he was putting on. "I'm just getting cleaned up and changed. I'll be right out!"Vaishnavi felt guilty about picking on her son. He certainly hadn't given her any cause. After his father died, Sandeep had stepped in and filled his shoes, growing up almost overnight. At seventeen, he should still have had some childhood left, but life on the. Not a good start to my academic career. Spotting a gap, I wheeled the truck into it and switched off the engine. I sat there for a few moments watching the scurrying students as they frantically wended their way to the doors of the multistorey buildings where for the next 5 years I would try to become a man of letters. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my beaten up old rucksack and moved to join them. Two minutes later I was standing outside the doors of the building which housed my first. Who could stand being like that?Emily smiled. "I do. I mean, not that often. Usually when I dreamyou're just Amy. But like maybe once a year I dream of Martin."My old name. Martin was a discarded, dried old cicada husk crushedunderfoot long after the insect inside had squirmed free. Which led meto wonder what cicadas did after that. Did they die? I hadn't died.I'd lived, would keep living. Also, I might have weighed about as muchas one, but I wasn't an insect. I was a girl. A fucking. This woman was as close to my ideal of beauty as it was possible to find. She was dressed in the local Babylonian version of "widow's weeds," but, on her, no sort of clothes would have looked bad. Her black hair was shiny and perfect, and her green eyes shown from a light brown face. I was stunned and instantly horny. Also, I was no longer tired."Hello, I am Ereshkigal, but you may call me Dear or Darling. Welcome to my realm of the dead. Oh, you are not dead, but you will never be able to.