The End and After

The rules

I was fighting fascism with the power of love and kindness and just really getting my ass handed to me. A total bloodbath. The referee would have stepped in by now but they had knocked him out with a steel chair. The only others watching were either fascists themselves or the people trying to fight fascism with the power of love and kindness and they weren’t having a great go of it either. I kept trying to explain in between haymakers that we were better than this and on top of that it wasn’t likely to be ruled on favorably as far as the courts. None of it helped. I was on my knees now bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose. It spilled out of me onto the snow in a pattern that if you sort of squinted at it just so from the right vantage looked like a heart. See that I pointed. Look how beautiful the world can be I tried to say through my broken teeth. Alright well now he was pulling out a gun. I didn’t think we were allowed do that. 

A nightmare I plan on having 

Conan O’Brien was looming over me and stabbing his pointed finger downward into my chest. He really is quite tall like they say. You piece of shit he said frothing at the mouth. You’ll never amount to anything he said. I’ll see to that he said. His face was pomegranate purple and his eyes had rolled into the back of his head. I was about two seconds away from breaking down and bawling right there on the sidewalk in front of the large crowd that had gathered. People said later it was the first time they had ever seen him in public not doing shtick. 

He spit on the ground and started back toward his waiting car and turned before getting in. 

And your stupid little books suck too he said. 

Wait I said. 

Have you really read my books? 

vii.

The ideal outcome is that you get to live a long and mostly agreeable life with the person you end up loving and it goes and goes and goes until one of you has to die and the other has to watch it transpire and anyone on the outside who is apprised of the raw statistics of your lives applauds and cries like wow what a run they had. Up until the end there to be fair what with the agony and pain and fear and unfathomable grief. But setting all that aside what a love they had. 

I wish I had something like that they say. I can’t even get a date haha.

We haven't come up with something better than this:

To wipe the brow of the person you've loved for decades. Either with a hot towel or a cold towel relative to however their suffering is going. To think how lucky you are to be there doing that. 

I don't find that concept particularly heartening. I find it a delayed kind of torture in fact. Although I suppose most of the alternatives aren’t much better. I wonder which one them you and I are going to get.

A desecration

My sisters had convinced me to upload her into the infernal contraption. They had all pitched in and got me one as a gift. As a transitional sort of deal.

My nephew handled the computer part of it. We were all proud of him for how much computer he was doing at school so I felt it was only right to let him chip in in his own way. 

So there it sat on the mantle next to the ashes and some of the sturdier leftover flowers they took back from the funeral home for me. 

She was never perfect I probably don’t need to tell you. You know how she was. We hadn’t had a very good last couple of years there toward the end. But from time to time I thought about turning it on. Turning her on. Not like that my goodness. Whatever the terminology is. Just as a test. To see how it worked. If it felt real.

Just talk to it they said. Just try to pretend they said. 

Alright.

Alright fine. 

I still spread out the quilt your mother gave us on the couch when I have dinner in front of the TV I told her. Even now. I load the dishwasher the way you used to. God you would get so mad about that. Make the bed most days too. 

The light inside of it was glowing. Like it was processing this new information. 

It let out a shrill beeping. The sound of a fire alarm and then her voice. 

Are you seriously smoking inside of the house right now?

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