How would God respond to making a mistake? Would planets collide or mountains slide into the sea? Or would the ledger of all life simply remain out kilter until a series of small events forced that ledger back into balance again? It's probably the l...
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August 1st
Baltimore, MD
My father was good at many things, but suicide wasn't one of them. When he was told about the state of his cancer, he tried to end his life. Unfortunately, he temporarily forgot that guns (and bowling alley walls) are far more effective than pills if you're truly serious about leaving this Earth. Pills, especially the wrong pills, just make you sleep for a week. After that, the powers-that-be will scoop up all your deadly playthings and leave you looking for a novel way out. Usually, there isn't much to work with. And trust me, thrusting some slippery baby back rib bones into your neck won't do any good at all. Except to confirm that you can't be trusted ever again. No knife. No fork. Not even a dull spoon.
But don't worry, my dear one, because my father got his revenge on the family. After that awful August day, he clung to his miserable life for nearly a year thus defying the doctors and seemingly God as well. Even the family cat joined in the fun. The little tuxedo co-conspirator would hop onto Dad's bed, making my father wince in pain, and then settle on top my father's weakened legs. It's important to know that most cats weigh many times their normal walking-around weight when they sleep. At first, my father would try to flip the cat off his legs. But then (in a FLASH of insight), he'd accept that this moment was exactly what he wanted. Dad knew that he'd be asked about moving the cat and he'd refuse – forcing everyone to see the pain spread across his face.
I missed so much from those days because I was barely there. So now, all that's really left are small memories that I enlarge and intensify well beyond their true importance. When I think of the last time I saw my father, I think of overripe bananas. You know the kind. They have a few too many brown speckles and you can smell the sickly-sweet fruit through their thick (thick) skins. My father was bedridden by that time and I hugged him as I was leaving. I watched as his thin arms reached out to me. And before I closed my eyes and smelled his impending death, I saw the brown speckles that covered his arms and hands. His skin was jaundiced and he looked like banana that was no longer good for anything.
So, my dearest Charon, (FLASH... FLASH... FLASH), one morning last year, I heard my own echoes of those days. Cancer this. Cancer that. Unknown. Undetermined. Months. Days. It's all up in the air like kites in the spring. Make the best of your time. Get your affairs in order.
Honestly, it happens just like they say it will because you really don't hear a word that's being said to you after the initial news is broken. And the news was surely awful. Or I guess it was awful. But in my case, I got distracted because I kept thinking about the million monkeys arriving at doorstep. But I was also looking at all the wrong things. I know I was supposed to listen intently to what the doctor was telling me, but I couldn't help myself. As he spoke, I watched the doctor wave his arms about - his hands flitting here and there in crazy patterns like dragonflies feasting on a hoard of mosquitoes. And all the while, I kept watching both of his hands and then just his left hand and finally just his left wrist. You see, the doctor was wearing a watch but there was something strange about his watch because he must have opened the face at some point and rotated the numbers one quarter turn. His watch had the 12 where the 9 used to be - leaving everything three hours out of whack. I couldn't (for the life of me) figure out what it meant.
In the end, I don't remember saying much or asking the doctor anything except whether I'd smell like a banana when the end was close. He said I wouldn't.
So that's my story. I heard my "awful" news and went home. At first, I wasn't sure what to do. Then finally, I decided to drive; I just wasn't sure where to go for a long time but finally I made a plan.
At one moment past midnight on the 1st of August of last year, one million monkeys cleared the monkey sleep from the corners of their eyes and began to work. All at once, they start pounding on the keys of their old-fashioned typewriters. They planned to continue type type typing for as long as I let them. After that, who knows.
