tonight the week old bruise of a sunset painted the western sky
the birds called their shrill courtship
the grass cooked in the fading light
the insects skittered and chirped...
Neath it all,
cooking tar,
burning oil,
offal,
powdered rubber,
sweat.
Internal combustion drone,
and the empyreumatic haze of progress.
City smog arc light dawn,
sound and fury, slight of hand,
the world wrapped in used gauze,
daylight filtering through the dried amber serosanguinous fluid,
sickly stain of tobacco smoke on white gloss walls,
disease sweet and cloying,
attaching, insinuating,
a permeating permanence,
grasping, suffocating, nauseating,
glue trap tacky, flypaper fresh,
painted lawns and oiled asphalt,
crackling tapping ruffling buzzing,
ticking in the grass and tickling the nose,
close stillness, muggy and sticky,
crumbling tar on dusty earth,
laying out the inexorable stretch of predictable days,
rat trap ethics, cul-de-sac freedom,
managed success, planned failure,
and a million billion distractions.
Schopenhauer told us that a life without pain lacked meaning,
but he failed to mention that a life without meaning isn't necessarily free of pain.
Pretend to be stupid for long enough and we can convince even ourselves.
It's been more than two years and I still can't bring myself to wish the two of them well.
Funny that, I should be.
I mean considering all the bullshit that passed between (not even counting the time near the end where she told me I was nothing but a charity case) I have to wonder why I even care.
But whenever I see her face I still get that same old warmth.
I never do anything about it of course; unlike the lead in a cheesy romantic comedy I know that stalking someone is not the way to win their heart, and I know that relationships are over when they're over (regardless of whether or not one would much rather it were otherwise).
But I just can't bring myself to wish them happiness together.
The best I can manage is to ignore the situation (which I've successfully done for a number of years now) and try to get on with my life (which I've done with varying degrees of success for the last year or so).
Funny old thing love.
Never was very good at it.
Thankfully I've always had a knack for goodbye though.
(practice makes perfect they say, though the type of practice I typically get leads me to approach it with a degree of finality)
So today I woke to a message informing me that one of my cousins on the east coast was found dead in his car this morning about a block from his home.
It kinda surprised me, but I guess it shouldn't. We're all getting older.
Still, he was only in his mid 50's.
At first I thought it might have been some sort of violence but that doesn't appear to be the case (he and his wife are well off enough to live in the kind of neighborhood where the neighbors notice gunfire in the early morning hours).
Still waiting on a cause of death.
Some of us are thinking heart attack as he was a big man (6'7" and powerfully built), and worked a high stress job. Other's are thinking blood clot (he had recently been to Europe, and those 17 hour plane rides aren't the healthiest thing in the world).
His mother, of course, is inconsolable.
And his wife is not doing well by most accounts either, which is to be expected.
It's odd, all these years and I've never managed to get the hang of talking to someone who's just lost a child or close family member.
I just never seem to know what to say, so most of the time I just don't say anything.
But still, I hate being 3,000 miles away and unable to do anything but send warm wishes through the email, or express condolences over the phone.
I've been getting awfully good at expressing condolences these last few years... But I still never know what to say.
Anyway, the day just got more interesting from there.
So tonight I'm going to have a drink, maybe two.
And I'll say 'Goodnight cousin John'.
'Goodbye and good luck'.
Fate smiling, we'll all meet up for beers on the other side.
Till then, save us all a booth and get a tab started.
