My name is Serena Joy. Once, everybody would have known me, but now I don't know. I used to be so glamorous, always extravagantly made-up. Now I feel like a shadow, a wisp of what I once was. I'm so tired, all the time. There's simply nothing to do. I spend time in my garden, bending my short body down to the ground, but all I do is kill time. Sometimes I get ill, just to have something to do. All of the other Wives come to visit me. That's nice. I also sleep a lot, and when I sleep, I dream. I dream of having babies, my very own babies. I could get rid of that stupid Handmaid, who's only function seems to be to make me feel inferior. I could have my own babies, borne out of my own womb. But I wake up, and it's always only a dream. The trappings of ordinary life always seize me, throwing me back down into my unrelentingly boring life.