To Find Out If I'm Really Alive

“Ah, but that’s how it is sometimes,”

he said. “I just

get so lonely

that I speak to the

dead bodies I transport in my

hearse. It’s not

illegal

or immoral. I’m just talking. Well,

okay, okay, I gotta admit,

if one’s a woman and still

looks… still looks

okay enough… well, I might sneak

a kiss and a touch. Still

nothing to take one

to jail for. I’m just…

so fucking lonely. Sometimes I go

into abandoned buildings

and write positive

messages on

the walls. Things like

LOVE YOURSELF!

or

YOU ARE ENOUGH!

or

STAY STRONG! YOUR BEST LIFE

IS RUSHING AT YOU!

Do I believe all those things?

Well, I don’t know

anymore.

Sometimes I write poems too, but

they only make people laugh. Really

that’s the only response I get

from people. They laugh at me.

They laugh at me like

they laugh at a monkey behind

bars in a zoo. At no

point do they think that I could

be one of them. I am

one of them. Yet

when I walk through the forest

with a rope at my waist

not one of them stops me to ask

if I’m okay. Truth is,

I never plan on hanging myself. No,

it’s just… in the hopes that

maybe

someone would… you know, care. Well,

no luck so far. I am so alone

and lonely I sometimes

sit by the margin of the lake

when the water is limpid

and I look at my reflection and start

singing

just to pretend that

a mermaid is down there trying

to make me come

to her. Sometimes I fall into

the water too. Still, people don’t care.

Of course, one day I’m going to

fall and never get out. Something

tells me they won’t care even

to fish my dead body out. Honestly,

all I do hope for

is to be reincarnated as a dog in

the next life.

A dog, now that’s an entity everyone

pays attention to. Who’s the most

important

at any party? The dog,

of course. When you’re a dog

everybody wants to pet and

befriend you. And if you show interest

in them, even a fraction of what they

show in you,

they consider it a grand privilege. Dogs

are really the luckiest, most

loved beings upon

this Earth. I want to be

a dog.

So, friend, first of all, thank

you for listening to me. Like I

said, nobody alive would do

what you did. And second,

if you don’t have any objections…

we’ll take a detour on

the bridge. The mermaids are

calling. A sacrifice has to

be made if we are to achieve our dreams

for the next life.

I shall sacrifice…

everything.”

The dead man

in his hearse

had no objection

the bridge

lay

ahead of them

“In the popular words of my

favorite character, I’m not

going there to die. I’m going

to find out

if I’m really alive!”