What (in life) were you? Your fur is white, and I assume from such whiteness that, pre-conversion, you were some fetching breed of arctic creature. But that’s the kind of guess rendered useless by its own generality, since I know nothing about the Arctic, nor do I know which of its creatures are hunted for their fur, nor for that matter do I know when it became normal to wear body parts for fashion rather than survival. The internet said you could have been a fox, a rabbit, a mink, a raccoon dog, a muskrat, a beaver, a stoat, an otter, a seal, a cat, a dog, a coyote, a wolf, a chinchilla, or a common brushtail possum, so I need you to ground me in the specifics of your existence. I am trying to make a connection here.

Let’s go back (if it’s not too painful) to the time before you became the fur that became the coat that my wife received from her rich friend then wore obsessively all winter. Let’s go back (if it’s okay with you) to your final moments as you. Forgive my morbidity, but did you see your killer? Was there a chase involved? Were your children bearing witness? This is my philosophy and maybe you share it: if you can’t let me be, don’t kill me in front of my family. If your murderers did not extend to you this courtesy, shame on them. I will pray now, as I’m sure you did, that the lucre generated by your death installs a curse upon everyone involved. Lord, may any man who smiled to see this creature die one day see his own death coming slow as a rider in the distance. May there be fear and smallness and shame.

I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but what, if anything, would you say to your killers? Let’s pretend you could come back for one day. What would have the best chance at converting them from murderous assholes to large-hearted saints? (Is it justice or grace that rearranges a heart? I can never tell.) What if I could get you a year? Would that make a difference? I am not optimistic where the repentance of killers is concerned. Are you? I think greed is the thickest ice of all the ices around our consciences. If I could secure it, would you want another lifetime to come back and try to break that ice, or would you rather I just let you keep sleeping? It’s your call. Either way, no judgment.

Speaking of judgment, what do you know about this rich woman who gave you (or what is left of you) to my wife? The reason I ask is this: the other day I walked in on my wife as she was looking at herself in the mirror. She was wearing you. She was wearing nothing but you, her long brown legs cast out in front of her, her elegant neck thrown back to catch the light of the overhead bulb. I should’ve found this sexy. I should’ve held her and said something about how lovely she looked. But I couldn’t. Because when I looked at her, all I saw was the rich woman. The rich woman’s legs, the rich woman’s neck, and (you must believe me when I tell you this) the lush, curling self-confidence of the rich woman’s smile. My wife, as if emulating her friend, had become a stranger to me. You know a thing or two about transference, so tell me this: should I be concerned here?

Final question, I promise: if your body is here with us, where are you? And what of the distance between the place where you are and the place where we are, the place where (in case you don’t know) we’re still killing your kind for the sake of our fashion? Is that distance so great that the transactions of earth become tolerable, even humorous, in their microscopic cruelties? Or is it the other way? Are you closer now than ever before? So close that all the lines we used to abide by have become useless and blurred, killers now saints, saints now wolves, the poor rich and the rich poor, all one, ice broken and hearts recovered, all one, your body now my body, the two of us all one, one, one. Answer me this: is that tired dream of solidarity any less laughable in the place where you are?