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You would think that impending death wasn’t a basic feature of being alive. The insane reactions to the pandemic were, in hindsight, foolishly over reactions, and many lost minutes, and hours, and days, and weeks of quality living due to bureaucratic bungling and overreach. How often, in our lives, do we say, if we knew then what we know now? “Trust the science?”. Perhaps it is a good thing that most of us now have a healthy skepticism for anyone who purports to know what the science says. In any event, we are all going to die anyway. What matters is how we choose to live while we are here.
Put your mask on,
they said, as he entered the store,
by the door.
You need to be careful,
said the flyer posted next to the counter.
The clerk looked like something
out of an alien invasion movie,
wearing a plastic shield
that reflected the light
from the garish fluorescent bulbs
in the ceiling.
He stared at big Xs on the ground,
taped with duct tape
in the color red,
which he supposed meant
it was serious.
Of course, he thought,
it was serious.
Death stalked him every day.
It was one heartbeat away,
or one fall down the stairs,
or one senseless act of violence.
Death was his companion.
He had learned to welcome its breathing
in the night.
Now, death was everywhere.
It screamed at him from the headlines
in the newspaper.
It followed him around,
like a puppy at Christmas.
In the early morning,
death spoke to him,
only after he spent some time
with the coffee.
But, he always knew it was there,
around the corner.
It eyed his wife as well,
speaking under its breath,
with an evil voice
and a muffled rejoinder
about the inevitable suffering
that goes with being human.
As he ran from the store,
ripping the mask from his face,
and screaming in anguish,
he realized that death would be there
anyway.
He resolved to live today
with a better companion.
Life tended to be easier to talk to.
Life was a happier brother in arms.
Life was his present.
His future
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