He was feeling old.
He felt a chill at night,
and took more steps to the bathroom than normal.
He was visited by his anxieties
at the normal hour;
but they stayed around longer than usual.
When he looked at the ceiling in the early morning,
He wondered why the dimples in the paint
were not more regular,
and then he realized
that it didn’t really matter.
He got fewer headaches
when He didn’t think about such things.
When he trekked downstairs to his desk,
He watched more carefully
where his feet went.
He walked with more caution.
Old age requires caution.
Old age requires luck.
Old age requires the suspension of disbelief
and the remembering
of the inevitability of death.
In order to avoid death,
we must stay alive,
and he knew the feet must keep moving,
even if they traveled slowly
to the final destination.
He knew that he needed no more purpose
than to forestall death,
and no more belief
than to make belief unnecessary.
His choice was stark.
Be among the living,
or be among the dead..
He resolved that,
while among the living,
he would keep the pharmacy
that was his body
open for business.
Caffeine, pain pills, blood pressure medicine,
compression cuffs, vitamin pills,
all needed a path through the system,
and a guide through the highways and byways,
of the deteriorating landscape.
He needed to entertain himself on the journey
to the other side of midnight.
He knew that when he made it to the other side,
he would no longer
need or care
about the final destination.
He decided to concentrate
on the joy to be found
in between doses
of the medicine keeping him alive.
He needed to be alive.
For that, he needed not to be dead.
