constellations.

Jack says the planets are misaligned, and thats why people die. I don't believe him, but he says it so convincingly.

"Death is inevitable," I counter, "and the position of Jupiter relative to Pluto holds no bearing on this." But I am unable to change his beliefs.

"We are all at the whims of a cosmic ballet that went awry the moment the sun solidified and the proto-planets began to swirl in aharmonic swirls around it." He likes using the big words, he thinks it will confuse me and cause me to drift into logical fallacies, or even worse, into his line of thinking. But I am not one to drag myself down into these meaningless conjectures on the nature of the universe.

"There are more pressing matters," I say, full of hot air and the TRUTH, "And we have much to do, in the time allotted us on earth." He does not debate me on this point, only nods and continues driving.

We are going to a funeral, for the late Christine Doran. I never knew her that well, which makes the fact that she is dead slightly at odds with what I normally associate with the event. Whereas in most cases a death of an acquaintance brings tears, and fond memories, and reminisces on what the person was like, in the case of the recently departed Ms. Doran, it is like the disappearance of a background character in a movie. She was an extra, in so many words. Not to be missed to any great extent, but her absence is noticeable, if you saw her there in the first place.

Jack rolls down the window. (Well he doesn't roll it, per se. He powers it down. We need new verbs, to keep up with the technological advances in car design.) He tosses out his half-finished Camel unfiltered. "It is bad form to smoke amongst the dead, and a funeral as well." He makes pseudo-profound statements like this often. On first listen they sound clever, but they don't stand up to repeated inspection. The gem of the bunch has always been "We are in love with who we pretend to be."

I glance behind us, but there's no one else on the road right now. Its 6 am, on a Sunday, but we're still an hour away from the place we need to be.

I have never liked funerals anyway. I don't know why anyone would. Other than pseudo-goth teenagers, elitist art types, and people who are in love with the idea of death. I'd prefer to be spending this morning asleep, and then doing something. And it would most definitely not be something involving a dead background character and a manic-depressive astronomer. Meaning Christine, and Jack, respectively.

"We are the living impaired," he begins intoning again, "we go from routine to routine and lay the tracks for our demises slowly through each day, never giving thought to the cosmical joke that has been played on us."

"I'm fairly sure that Neptune had nothing to do with the car that ran Christine off the road, Jack." I am glaring now. I don't glare often, it is uncomfortable. But I'm doing it now.

"Ah, but, you see, dear sir Matthew, he DID have something to do." Oh he was really on a roll now. "If not for the exact position of the aforementioned blue-green planet in the sky of that fateful evening, perchance young Ms. Doran would never have been in the path of the oncoming vehicle which struck her so violently."

"Your hypothesis is unprovable, 'Sir Jackson', so I'd appreciate it kindly if you would just drop it." I think I put too much anger in the statement, it sounded much harsher than I meant to.
Jack stares at me for a brief moment. "Very well." Yes, I definitely hit some nerve, because he keeps quiet for the next 45 minutes.

We arrive at the cemetery at 7:23 am, and I can see the small group of mourners already gathered near the site. Jack parks, and as I reach to open the door, he stops me by grabbing my arm quickly and gently.

"Matt," he says quietly, "I didn't mean to offend or upset you in any way. If I have, I'm sorry. I am afraid of death, and all it says about the human condition and our accomplishments. We are a species who works all our entire short lives to build something or discover something or create something with which to outlive ourselves, but we all end up in the same position in the end. Confronting this head-on is a hard prospect for me, as I am concerned with distances and measurements and physics, and there is no place in them for conjectures on an afterlife or the persistance of memory. I am frightened of the thought of leaving nothing behind but a small gathering of people who view me as a sideline in the cinematic of their lives."

He lets go, and I nod, because I am unsure how to respond to his confession. We both get out of our respective sides of the car, and adjust our jackets and ties. Before we head up the hill, we take a second to collect ourselves. I grasp his shoulder briefly, and he says without looking at me, "We are the living impaired, Matt."

I reply, "Yes we are, but there is hope. We're not dead yet."

Reviews

[J. Swaney]

Perhaps I'm not sure what this is. Is there more ? Is this an introduction to a larger piece or just a brief story about thoughts on life of death ? It was an interesting piece and held my attention but I did not really get a since of closure at it's conclution.

Thank You... J. Swaney [email protected]