Summary

“The following transcript is adapted from an interview that took place in the visitor’s lounge at the St. Tekawitha Retirement Community in Spokane, Washington, on February 28th, 2052” (189). The first part of the story consists of dialogue, without prose description. As the interview begins, the interviewee insists that the person asking the questions gives his name and date of birth. He does, identifying himself as Spencer Cox, born on July 7 of 2007. After a couple of long silences, Cox then asks the interviewee for the same information, and she identifies herself as Etta Joseph, born “on the Spokane Indian Reservation on Christmas Day, 1934” making her “one hundred and eighteen years old” and, she adds, “the Last [sic] of the Spokane Indians” (190). She then says that she is not really the last, but that saying she is sounds more romantic.

Spencer and Etta then...