The world won’t end in a whimper,
and not with a bang,
and probably not with fire and ice.
It’ll end with them shouting, “You lie,”
and others shouting back,
oblivious to the death and dying,
that’s rendering life a wreck.
Monday’s Theme Music
The sadness of aging is often not what happens to you but the losses of others, from friends who age and disease, to our heroes.
I, and my generation, has seen a lot of our heroes passing away. The inevitability of death can’t be denied. It happens, but we don’t know what goes on past the door. There’s a lot of guesses and conjecture, and some promises and prophecies, but most of us need to wait until we go through the doorway before we find anything, if there is even anything there.
These reflections came as I thought about my dreams last night. I didn’t remember much except one. As I went through the exercise, though, the first lines of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” (1992) entered the head stream.
Oh, my life is changing everyday
In every possible way
And oh, my dreams, it’s never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems
Those lines reflect my life philosophy. Nothing is what it ever fully seems. We live on spectrums of seeing, remembering, sometimes understanding with a glint of blinding insight, but more often, applying hopeful explanations to what we don’t know, all in efforts to uphold and sustain this stubborn illusion of reality. But then, hearing Dolores O’Riordan’s unique voice in my head, I remembered that she’d passed on, slipping through the next doorway when she was forty-six. She’d drowned in a bathtub. Reading about it now on Wikipedia, I learn her blood-alcohol level was .33. Empty alcohol bottles were found in her room.
So, in memory of dreams and life, here’s today’s theme music.
Zorofloof
Zorofloof (floofinition) – Pets who are manifestations of a supreme deity that come into being to deliver progressively deeper and more insightful knowledge about reality’s nature to Earth’s inhabitants.
In use: “She couldn’t explain it, but her cat’s presence calmed her while enabling deeper thinking and sharper, clearer memories. When she mentioned this to a friend, he smiled. “Zorofloof.” His expression, tone, and soft volume reflected the introduction to something more enigmatic.”
Change
“Keep the change,” he said, turning away from the cashier.
“You always say that,” his friend said as they walked away as the cashier put the coins into the tip jar and said, “Thank you, sir, your order will be right up.”
“Habit.” The other shrugged. “I don’t want change.”
“But it adds up.”
He was about to reply when his friend said, “Hey.”
As he turned, his friend flipped a silver coin at him. He caught it without thinking, mostly as protection to keep it from hitting his face. Within a second, he raised the coin and looked at it. Seeing it was a nineteen seventy-eight quarter, he said, “Fu — ”
Then he was gone.
Puzzled, his friend blinked at the empty space. He’d lost the thread on what he’d been doing. He’d had a quarter and he’d been thinking…something…
Rubbing his head, he tried to remember. There’d been something there, but where that something had been, it seemed like there was now a hole.
Sighing, he told himself, it’ll come back to him. He was getting old and forgetful, like his parents. Turning, he hunted for a table, sure that he’d forgotten something important, growing less certain that it would ever come back.
Reboot
Hearing unfamiliar banging and creaking sounds, he opened his eyes and found the ceiling.
Pink, and swaying. It felt like he was on a boat. Or would that be a ship?
He closed his eyes. Something was hung. Reboot. Try again.
When he next opened his eyes, he was looking at correctly colored sage green walls. Sunlight was streaming in.
Feeling better, he rose to hit the head and discovered a limp. He’d not had that before. As its presence was being digested, he passed the bathroom mirror.
He was female. Not bad looking, about the correct age, forty-five. Same colored hair. Those were starts to being the right person in the right reality.
More to digest.
He continued to the toilet. His cats and dogs must be out of the house. The primary reasons for keeping them was to help keep reality anchored. It didn’t work, if they weren’t around. Ergo, they weren’t around. That’s why his start-ups were hanging.
As he sat to piss, he considered going back to bed to reboot again, but it was already eight thirty. Time was the one constant that didn’t change when a start-up went awry.
Coffee, he decided, wiping, flushing, washing his hands and heading for the kitchen. He thought while popping a K-cup into place, coffee always helped release the hang ups. It was remarkable that way. Once he got the coffee into his system, he’d find the animals and bring them into the house. Then he’d decide. The house seemed correct, as did the reality outside his window. Maybe he’d enjoy being a woman for a day, or take a nap later and reboot.
Sipping the coffee, he smiled. Coffee always helped. If that ever changed, he didn’t know what he would do.
Michael Seidel, writer 