But the notion that it might be coming soon brought to the front of his mind a thing that of late he had been pondering, typically while staring out the windows of private jets at the landscape passing beneath him. His religious beliefs were completely undefined. But whether it was the case that his spirit would live on after his body or die with it, he had the nagging sense that, at his age (and especially in his current circumstances), he really ought to be growing more spiritual. For he was certainly closer to being dead than to having been born. Instead of which he was only becoming more connected to the world. He could not even imagine what it would mean to be a whole and conscious being without the smell of cedar in his nostrils. Seeing the color red. Tasting the first swallow of a pint of bitter. Feeling an old pair of jeans as he drew them up over his thighs. Staring out the window of an airplane at forests and fields and mountains. With all of that gone, how could one be alive, conscious, sentient, in any way that was worth a crap?