To call her an environmentalist would be an understatement. She preached the renewal of the Earth, in future tense, and how our actions today impact that future. Something about rewards and working toward a common goal. I never believed a word out of her mouth, but helped her plant trees one time, when she asked.

     “Do you believe in life after death?” she said to me that day. I dreaded these conversations. I would have declined this Earth-saving mission if I could have gotten out of the whole trees-do-good-for-the-environment thing and the no-I'm-not-doing-anything-Thursday conversation we had previously.

     “No,” I said. She didn't flinch, or puke, or slap me across the face. She kept her gaze down, hair blocking most of my view, and put her weight onto the shovel.

     “Fascinating.”

     “What do you mean,” I said.

     “It seems so strange to me to think about not believing in something else. Something beyond our eighty years, if we're lucky.” I was silent. “I guess I grew up believing, so it's different,” she said.

     “I think about it at funerals sometimes.”

     “Oh?” Now I felt like I was the one spurring on the conversation; she was the one disinterested. I said nothing. I was watching her do all the work while I held a baby tree upright. My lips were dry from the wind. “I suppose that would be appropriate,” she added.

      “I mean, maybe there is some kind of heaven, but it doesn't seem too appealing to me.”

     “Why?” I watched dirt tumble down the mini-mountain she was creating.

     “Bodiless bliss might get boing after a while.”

     She laughed. “Oh, I'm with you there. Harps and floating spirits have nothing to do with my beliefs.” It was weird how much she talked about it. You'd think she'd be sick of it. “So you think you'll just rot in the dirt,” she said.

     “Well, I believe in reincarnation of sorts. When the body decomposes it enriches the soil, causing grass to grow above it, which a cow might eat, which a person might butcher. Everything moves up and around the old food chain. In a way my body is enriching the lives of others for an eternity, if you think about it.”

     “Gross,” she said. “You're practically saying when I eat a hamburger I'm a cannibal.”

      I laughed. “Basically, yeah.”

     “I guess I see what you're saying. But your consciousness ends when you die, then?”

     “I don't know. Maybe it somehow moves throughout the different organisms.”

     “But it's not like you suddenly get transported to a human fetus.”

     “No, I guess not. Although the food the mother eats supports the fetus, so, maybe somehow.”

     “The ultimate recycling program,” she said.

     “Think about it. It's logical. Plus you love recycling.”

     “Ha, right. I think I like my plan better,” she said.

     “What, a rotten carcass coming back to life after a billion years? Not pretty.”

     “It won't be the same body, not exactly. It will have physical elements, but it will be changed, I think.”

     “Right.” I placed the tree in the hole in response to her signal.

     “It's recycling just the same. Ish.”

     “Nice defence.”

     “I wouldn't expect you to believe it. But if you did, wouldn't it change the way you live now? Who cares how you live if you're going to potentially lose consciousness and keep returning until the sun burns up the environment, or we get hit by a meteor. What does morality matter?”

     “I don't know. We're humans. We've evolved enough to feel empathy for others.”

     “But why? What's the benefit, if it doesn't amount to anything?”

     “I wouldn't say it doesn't amount for anything. Radicals like you might actually save the planet.”

     “But who cares?”

     “Well we all want to survive, obviously.”

     “Yeah. Until we're eighty.”

     “No, future generations and all that. You've spouted that yourself; I've heard you.”

     “It doesn't make sense. Everyone does good for a reward. But there's more reward if you don't, religion aside,” she said. I knelt down to help her scoop the dirt around the tree. “You know?”

     “Like if you rob a bank you get money? I don't know.”

     “Like if you commit genocide colonizing land it's your benefit. You get more land and resources. If morality has nothing to do with it, you're simply looking out for number one. Isn't that survival of the fittest?”

     “We're all humans, Kelly, abolishing our own kind is pretty sick.”

     “I know. I'm just being the devil's advocate.”

     “It's like you're trying to make a case against your own beliefs.”

     “No, this is me making a case for spirituality, for believing in something else, be it heaven or a renewed Earth or dying and waking up on Mars. Empathy means we have a future purpose.”

     I wiped my face with the side of my hand. “Or something,” I said.

     “Or something.” She was quiet for a while as she patted the soil. I wondered how long it would take for grass to grow there.

     It was the last tree. She thanked me for helping and we loaded our materials into the back of her pickup truck. I don't remember what we talked about on the way home.