he could see her there , at that inn in the gray house , her head resting on his stomach as a recent song reminded him , her eyes on the ceiling , him stroking her hair as they talked about nothing and everything and that was how he saw her when he looked back now , how he pictured her- before she felt sick and they said it was cancer and they cut up his beautiful cassandra and she died , just like every other insignificant organism on this tiny nothing of a planet .