The two friends sat together under their cooking tent, drinking coffee with Baileys and musing about their newest adventure. They were going to become millionaires. One had purchased a book on how to make money through real estate and they were going to buy old houses together and fix them up. The other was known to have punched a hole in a wall  with a sledgehammer because she decided on a whim she wanted a door there. Their conversations always had a momentum. There was an idea to mull over, a plan to hatch, a project to start or give up on. Their cooking tent and their camping site in general, was a pantheon of colour  and texture; layers of barkcloth were draped over the sides of the structures giving a splash of pinash to the campsite. They both collected vintage fabrics and would trade. Their homes resembled each others and one felt like the extension of the other ; just like their friendship. Their children would end up en masse in one of the the homes that faced each other and they would move back and forth between them throughout the day. Meals were often shared with offerings of what was leftover in the fridge. The children ate a la carte most nights.

They became each other’s best friend, sister and anchor. One was very lonely because her husband was rarely home and when he was, he was angry with her. Her friend loved and accepted her and became her family. They were a team that held their blended families together. They were inseparable. They started a conversation that lasted 9 years until the day one of them died. The other felt lost as though she had lost a limb and wandered in her thoughts continuing the conversation. She had been quite sick and then after treatment she improved and was back to here old self. The one who saw spirits had a dream that her friend was visited by her father who had recently passed. He was standing beside a body of water and had a big black dog by his side. He took her with him. She had another dream where her friend embarked on a boat to traverse a body of waster to meet a group of people dressed in white on the other side.  She couldn’t tell her friend these dreams and she tried to block them and deny their meaning to herself. She told no one hoping that her silence and denial would negate their dire warnings. Her passing was difficult. There were a few times when her husband would call her friend and ask of the kids could come over because they may need to remove her body from the house and they didn’t want them seeing it. She would almost pass and then come back. When she was dying her spirit came to her friend. She felt her strong presence in the kitchen. She asked her to come to that spot to say goodbye when she finally left. The night she died her friend was awoken by a loud bang as the light in the kitchen exploded.

She passed to the other side.

She continued to have fitful dreams. She had a dream one night where she found herself in a room facing a lioness. She was beautiful, but fierce and powerful. They locked gazes from across the room. Her friend, a zulu healer, entered the room and looked at her and said “You are the lion”.