A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Grave

            I knew it was coming. I can’t say I didn’t. A lifetime of ignoring mortality has a price to pay sooner or later. 

Unlike some long suffering Russian living under enforced regimentation, I chose breakneck speed toward my demise bit by daily bit, day by yearly day.

            Who pays attention to stress when the template of life’s existence is predicated entirely upon a future of stress? Nah..no stress for me. Just chaos and clock-watching my life away.

I always believed eternity is like spinning in endless circles. No, wait. That would be a better description of my life. Be that as it may, I’m certain hell isn’t for the damned. It’s doing that which one has loathed all their lives. Hate laundry? It’s an eternity of laundry, fluff, fold and store. Hate cleaning? How does an eternity mopping, dusting and scrubbing sound?

            “Play life as close to the vest as possible,” I told myself over and over.

            “Ignore all obstructions even those cement walls you managed to avoid plowing your late model car into,” I said.

            After all, isn’t a daily trip to and from the office a guarantee of at least one fender bender a week? Sure it is. How can it not be? Millions of cars, trucks, buses and semis all vying for road space, like roaches after a crumb of poisoned food? Isn’t that the most memorable trip to the office, after all?

            Which, by the way, the office environment, comprised of honchos with major superiority complexes is another joy to behold. Hurry up. Get that mountain of paperwork on your desk done or the Czar of the Corporate World won’t just be offended. He’s prepared for the Second Coming of the Inquisition, with the same penalty for inadequate response time of violations to corporate rule. Oh joy!

            The corporate world, as no one ever really knows it, is usually the underbelly of all that can possibly be fruitless. Is there some point to squeezing 16 hours into an 8-hour day?

The Czar? He much prefers squishing two days into an hour. Timely, cost-effective and all that crap, don’t you know?

            The real grind was pretending not to be absolutely amused by the facades, games and skullduggery supposedly as covertly hidden as any CIA black ops. How do you keep a straight face when the Czar arrives at 10 AM and his corporate board of executers...er…executives arrived a half hour ago?

            Of course now, it’s just as funny watching the titans of sales and marketing go postal on each other in the great Game of Territorial Tyranny. Death be not proud, I always said.

            Every day at the office is like an episode of a comedy show. No one, but me, laughs. Wait. Make that smirks. Laughing is not tolerated in the corporate world. It’s too much a sign of being human. Robots only need apply. And, don’t give a single thought to making a productive suggestion. You may as well sign your own death certificate.

            When the five o’clock bell rings, we innocent children of the corporate world breathe a sigh of much needed relief; though, not for long. There’s still an hour or more of traffic congestion, horns honking, road rage and all manner of lack of civility to endure before “Home is where the Heart Used to Be.”

            Home? Oh please. Home is nothing more than a guideline for “should be” living. Everything must be as it “should be” or your obedient neighbor card is yanked away. Your perfect little lawn must be tended to on, what else? Your free weekend time. Or, you could get financially zapped by one of those “contractors” who does everything but remove your last nickel from your bank account.

            Thoughts on my way to the bone yard? A certain sly dog contractor who was up to no good and managed to filch a tidy sum for a job he spent a total of 15 minutes of work time to collect a week’s salary. Naturally, his work had to be redone by another “contractor.” A lifetime of trying to find a single honest contractor to paint, repair plumbing or electrical wiring wears on human life like a massive tidal erosion on a seacoast. Now and then, it’s possible to enjoy that all too rare feeling of confidence that you’ve gotten your money’s worth and won’t have to waste another decade in your endless search for honesty, integrity and bang for your buck.

            Was it the constant knowledge life is a huge game of who can rip off whom the most that brought me to my final demise? Or, the gangrene of games played by those who should know better?

            A sudden wave of memories of cans of tuna packed in water? More like, water packed in tuna. Three pounds of potatoes sold at the same price five pounds used to cost? Size does matter. Especially, when every day of your pathetic existence you notice how much smaller packaging has become and how much higher pricing went. A smile would cross my now rigored face. Was that really living? Waiting day by day on the next assault on my hard earned income? Being part of some strange alien life force game? Losing all personal control over human existence?

            Perhaps, the speed at which I raced through life had a purpose after all. It minimized my ability to focus on the games and the players.

            One might suppose on this final earthly day that a limo ride to my final resting place is more than a privilege. It’s interest on a lifelong loan that paid at less than zero percent interest rates.

            These final thoughts are part of that long, strange trip to the afterlife. If...there is an afterlife after all. I choose to believe, somehow, someway, though my physical body returns to dust, my immortal, now more powerful soul will find recompense for a lifetime of dodging bullets.

            I may be out of breath. I’m not out of thoughts. I’d always heard about a “final judgment.” In this limbo between earth and eternity, it’s possible to understand better the meaning of this.

            “I” am making the final judgment. I’d thought this would be the domain of a much higher, more supernatural power. At the moment I realize there was no turning back and this was a final voyage into the vast unknown, every detail I thought I’d forgotten came flooding back in memory.

            Memories of good and bad times. Memories of people long gone before me. Memories of a life encapsulated by normal human miseries and ecstasies. I never planned to say goodbye to my loved ones. It was a mutual understanding that there were no goodbyes, just a “see you later.”

            My plan was to leave the planet in better condition than I found it, all subversives to the contrary, of course. In some lifelong plan for my final demise, I knew that the end needed to be peaceful in order to enjoy eternal “rest.” Rest?

            Hmm…rest from the daily grind? Maybe, rest for the old bones that once loved to dance, sing, putter in the garden and enjoy family and friends. Faces come before me faster now: the face of the infants I once held, the third grade school teacher I so feared,  the young man I thought I’d love forever, that young woman who looked to me for guidance…so many faces like floating clouds in an azure sky.

            Oddly, there is a strange awareness of faces peering up at me. Up, down and somewhere in between is the location of this limbo place. A sense of fear grips me as those peering up at me seem angry, dark and hidden behind a thick wall they are clawing to reach me. Yet, I sense deeply that my journey is ahead.

            There! Ahead! Two faces I know so well. The brothers I grew up with. Funny, but there’s a kind of déjà vu feeling. Once, a long, long time ago, I followed them into the woods near our house. Before me, lay a wide creek. Then, my brothers urged me to jump across. I adamantly refused. They took me by both arms and told me to, “Jump!”

I’ve always been morbidly terrorized by deep water. No reason. Just an odd fear of drowning. At numerous intervals of my life, I’d had dreams of crossing a rickety old bridge with my brothers. At midpoint, the bridge collapses in the dreams and I try to save my brothers from drowning. Swimming lessons were of no avail to avert the fear of drowning.

            Now, they were taking my arms again. They weren’t telling me to jump this time. They were guiding me along a lovely path. Ahead was a deep, wide creek. The water was darker than any in my dreams.

            They started to jump across holding my arms. I slipped down into the water, struggling to rise to the surface. In my struggle, the water began churning into a vortex that seemed to pull me further and further down. Then, just as I thought I’d reached the bottom, my brothers dove into the water after me and pulled me out.

            Funny, I wasn’t water logged or even aware of being wet. The images of my brothers seemed to fade. I felt an uncontrollable feeling of loss. Yet, I knew I wasn’t alone in this place.

            There was a light ahead. The kind that radiates with prismatic beams in gold, purple, green, silver and white so bright it seemed to radiate heat. It was magnetic. There was no way to avoid confronting it. As it drew nearer and nearer, I thought I heard one of my favorite melodies playing softly in the background.

            I knew I was crossing from this limbo state into another dimension. There was such an air of relief. It was as if all of the weights and burdens of life had been lifted from my shoulders. Oddly, time rushed at such a speed that it blurred slower and slower until a micro second seemed eons long.

            Now, I could look down on my grave and see my family grieving respectful of my wishes that only my family and closest friends attend my funeral.  As the casket was lowered into the ground, a sunburst so bright shot out from behind fluffy white clouds. Everyone at the gravesite looked up at the sky.

            I whispered from my eternal home, “I love you and will always be with you.” Floating, floating in the great parapet of eternity, I know I’m not alone. There are unseen forces to guide me and comfort me. I’m freer than a bird. There’s something to be said for eternal rest for the world weary.