The Inner Condition

What would you do if somebody that you knew was effectively given a death sentence?  What would you do if someone that you knew was given an expiration date, and you knew that at a predetermined time they would cease to exist?  They would no longer have a shelf life, they would spoil, ferment, no longer breathing and no longer functioning in this world as we deem normal.  Would you be able to look them in the eye? Or even in the face?  In gatherings, would you be able to enjoy the time you have with them fully, or would that constant knowledge in the back of your mind creep forward as you continually try to suppress it with just one more drink? Try and push it back, compacting the garbage to make room for more but still the juice leaks past the compactor and it all oozes back into memory.  It’s all a loosing battle and will always be until their ordeal is over.

When it is over, what will you finally say? Were you close and did you share memories? Did you care about this person as if they were your own? What if they were your own, did you even know them at all? Did you even care about them like your other kin? Were they just a nuisance and something that you put up with when everyone was together.  An obligation that you had to deal with and token cheek to kiss during which the expectation grew greater that at some point a wad of twenties would be shoved into your hand.  Did you even care at all about this person?  Did you wish for their death for the ease of a burden or did you wish for their death for the ease of their pain or someone else’s pain or the ease of someone else’s burden?

I know almost nothing about you.  The only thing I know or remember about you is that your are a footnote to larger experiences that I share with someone else.  It was always them AND you. Not just you. I don’t remember you.  I don’t think about you.  I don’t worry about you.  All I know is that your time is coming to an end I don’t know how I fell about it.  I try to cry and yet I can’t bring forth the tears.  I go through the motions and yet nothing comes.   It’s like dry heaving, all action and no vomiting.  I will not pretend and I will not bullshit you, myself, or God.  I am not a good Christain, and often times do not try to be.  I do what I feel is right for me and my fellow man.  I used to truly believe and would have given anything for the knowledge of the existence of Him and His works and what comes after the great divide.

I don’t expect that God would exclusively listen to me in my time of need since I haven’t been such a good Christian and and I am definitely a sinner but I still only ask that he hear me out that he gives my request some consideration because of not just me but the others around me and how your predicament affects us all.  I pray that the rest of your time on earth is not painful.  I pray that your final days are peaceful and that they are everything you want them to be.  I pray that your beautiful smile radiates your room and that your last breath fills your lungs like the waters from a thousand flowing rivers and a million rolling oceans and that your heart drums its last beats in cadence with those in the room around you and it slowly fades away in a cacophony of reflection of life.  I pray that your eyes look upon the ones you love and see what you have given the world. You created good men, who have in turn created good families who in more turn have shaped the world around them as they see fit.  You have propped up a man who has never put his head down, and he can never put it down for the rest of his own days. You’ve led a good life and have done good things.

I regret I never made the effort to know you. I regret I never took the time to love you as I have loved others. And in the end the last thing I wish for is that you see your vision of paradise, and that you see yourself as you best remember and you see and touch and visit with all of those who have gone before you and wait in your truest form for all of those who will come after you.  We will all meet again on the other side of those dark waters.

ENDNOTES: R.A. Curcio, President and CEO of Beta Enterprises Un-Ltd.  Specialties include: Government Overthrows, Rebellion Quashing, Bar Clearing, Tiger Taming, Land Procurement, Rum Running, Wood Refinishing and Orgy Organizing. You can follow and contact Mr. Curcio at layoffthepabst.tumblr.com

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