I sit staring at the sun as it slowly sinks behind building 78, the reds and pinks (normally I hate pink, but for the moment I tolerate it and perhaps even... enjoy it) and purples of the clouds surrounding the bright orange glow of dusk, the rest of the sky still blue except for a few thin contrails miles above. The harsh glare fades softly, and my eyes readjust to the darkness they're used to until I no longer see that red spot in front of me where the sun was minutes before when I blink. The reds deepen; more and more pinpoint lights reveal themselves on the ground as countless humans ward off the gloom of night with feeble fluorescence. Dolls walk to their toy cars – row upon row of them – in the distance below me. Dolls I knw as people. Dolls I've never met before. Dolls with new yellow sports cars and dolls with twelve year old blue Chevy trucks that are missing most of their paint and their carbeurators, perhaps, but still somehow run.
On the other side of the sky is rising an angry, orange moon, the same color as a dim incandescent bulb just before the tungsten burns out in a brief but violent burst of brightness. The moon is full and large, shining down its pale apathy in introspection of its lonesome existence, separated from the nearest human being by 270,000 miles of a godless heaven. I stop and stare at the winter moon hovering over this too warm January weather, a warmth that contradicted the paleness of the sun – still hibernating through the expected wind and cold and snow – all day and all weekend, a sun I've seen a thousand times when surrounded by icicles hanging off of tired roofs and windows and snow covered in layers of salt. The sun told the truth, at least.
Today is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, and on Friday or Saturday it will be Imbolc. I know the former because I went to a Catholic high school, and I know the latter from studying Wiccanism and various other paganisms. Tonight I will celebrate by reading Summa Theologicae and drinking. On Friday I will celebrate by lighting candles and drinking. Call me a religious person.
You see, I'm what's known as a recovering Catholic. If you aren't one yourself, then no amount of explanation will make you understand precisely what that means. If you are one, then any explanation is superfluous. O, Holy Night is still one of my favorite songs. I admit that. I've accepted it and I'm moving on with my life. Every time I hear Shubert's Ave Maria I can't help but stop and listen. On Sundays I sleep in, preferably still feeling the effects of a good bottle of cabernet and next to an attractively naked woman, still asleep, but that doesn't happen often.
I watch the cars out the window as they pass by silently in the night, a soft night, comforting, a night that banishes all thought and merely exists. I imagine myself dancing among them, with them as they slide gracefully through shadows and starshine. My reflection is out there, stern looking, unsmiling, eyes cloaked by deep wells of emptiness. I walk without moving and sing without sound as another silver minivan idles its way from one side of existence to the other, ghosts of the family vehicles I once knew, spectres behind the dim reflection of the coffee shop. Tables exist as hazy mirror dreams in imaginary reality, and in them sit old men that lived a thousand years from now, sipping from disposable cups made from 100% recycled paper that were thrown out a thousand years ago.
I bring my own single use cup to my lips more sensuously than I intend, hoping perhaps that it will soon be replaced by a girl I've met a dozen times but never learned her name. I set it back down tenderly, sighingly, staring for long moments after it. I sigh again and pick back up my pen. I've started and restarted a score times so far, but nothing has been good enough – trite, melodramatic, boring, whatever. The crushed tea leaves have begun leaking out of the tea bag, the king that resembles an old dryer sheet cut into a circle and sewn shut.
I died two days ago. I was survived by my wife, Jessica, and two young children. The funeral is tonight at six p.m. at Sacred Heart Funeral Home at 2318 E. Main Street. I'm tempted to go but I've got work to do.
It's strange, opening the paper to see my own name in the obituaries. The misspelled my last name, but that's expected. I guess I just don't remember having been married. I sit for five minutes trying to think of how I died. It doesn't occur to me that I'm still alive and don't have a wife to survive me.
As I chew slowly my latest bite from the tuna-salad-on-pumpernickel-with-lettuce-and-tomato sandwich I ordered from the inept sandwich maker, I find out that I died of lung cancer. I don't remember having started smoking, either. The reason I ordered pumpernickel is because I enjoy saying it and because no one else gets it, so sometimes the sandwich maker has to ask a couple times to make sure he heard me correctly.
I was fifty two years old when I died. I taught theology at a jesuit high school. For the greater glory of God, right? I was a respected member of the community. I wonder briefly if anyone else will notice I've died, especially since I'll be meeting a few of them in an hour to study for our midterm tomorrow, an exam I apparently will not be taking, since by then I'll be covered in six feet of freshly dug earth and concrete. Damn. That means I'll get a zero – I'll fail the class. There goes my g.p.a. Unless, of course, the professor decides to drop our lowest test grade, in which case all I have to do is return to life in time for the next exam. Sure, no problem. Jesus ain't got nothin' on me. I take another bite of my poorly made sandwich.
I sit drinking more coffee than I should be drinking with a friend of mine late at night. The waitress is pleasant, apologizing for interrupting our conversation while she refills the sugar container before her shift ends and she leaves to drive home on empty city streets and watch the sun rise. The real reason we stop talking is because we're fascinated by the simple process, entranced by the ordinary and unable to look away with our unfocused eyes. Her name is Rebekah. Something about the way she says it makes obvious the ancient spelling. She doesn't fit the meaning of it, though. She's tall and slender, lithe and beautiful. Sometimes you see a person and know instantly that you'll sleep with them before the night is over. Looking at Rebekah, I know instantly that I will never sleep with her. Somehow this knowledge brings contentment, and I simply smile and leave a fifty percent tip before stepping through the glass double doors streaked with greasy fingerprints and into the still night air.

01/29/2002

Posted on 01/29/2002
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