"Do you believe in reincarnation?" I ask. "Perhaps." "What would you come back as?" "If I had my chance, a gazelle." "A gazelle?" "Yes, so graceful. So fast." "A gazelle?" Morrie smiled at me. "You think that's strange?" I study his shrunken frame, the loose clothes, the socks wrapped feet that rest stiffly on rubber cushions, unable to move, like a prisoner in leg irons. I picture a gazelle racing across the desert. "No," I say. "I don't think that's strange at all."