In Memory of Glenda Jackson

They sat off to the side, the soul and its guardian. "Does it ... pain you to be less remembered than some?" the guardian angel asked delicately. "Oh, no," she replied. "It's the way of things and, often, a relief of a kind. I have been known and forgotten and known again. Some will remember and some will not; some will see an image of me and say, "Isn't that ... uh ... uh ... she was in that ... uh ... " and the awkwardness will pass for sentiment - a kind of lovely almost memorial." "You've worked very hard; do you agree that it's time to rest?" the guardian whispered. "I don't rest well," she replied. "I never have. I suppose it's my own way of living out the human penchant for being perpetually distracted (by life, others, ourselves, time, air)." She chuckled. "It's really lovely to experience a chapter truly and gently closing, without having to start marketing the next or feel some kind of inner prodding to reinvent oneself." "Bad time to have a talk about reincarnation?" the guardian asked, smiling. "I forbid it," she said (dryly and with authority, in the voice she'd used to portray Elizabeth I). The angel nodded and held her hand.