Aunt Lydia writes that her time with her hypothetical reader is coming to an end. She pictures her reader as a young woman, settled in a dim corner of a library, laboring over her manuscript. She will hover over this bright young woman, urging her on in her reading. The young woman asks why Aunt Lydia had conducted herself this way and Aunt Lydia rests in the assurance that the young woman will never have to.

Aunt Lydia knows she has come to her end, but so has Gilead. She is sorry she will not see its downfall, as she must dispatch herself before the Eyes come. Aunt Lydia knows that the time has come for a needle of morphine to send her on her way. She hides her writing in its usual place.