Tom stood in a subway car. He was looking out the window at nothing while clutching onto a rail. There was a man sitting beside him looking distant. Tom imagined the man pulling a carving knife from his jacket pocket. Then he imagined that knife stabbing Tom twice, once in the heart. Then Tom imagined himself saying goodbye to everyone he ever knew. He imagined himself thinking that he should have written a note to all those people in case he was ever stabbed on a train. Then he rewound his thoughts. He began writing the letter in his head.
“This is a letter to everyone always.
I want you all to know that dying was an incredible experience. I was completely ready for it. It doesn’t hurt a bit and I feel great. If you’re fond of sleep then you’re gonna love this even more. My last moments were incredible and I said goodbye to you all. It was glorious. Just remember: If I can do it, you can too!
P.S. Heaven doesn’t exist, but wherever I am it’s really fun. They have jumping castles.”
He decided the sentiment was right but the words were not. He wanted everyone to know what will happen always would. He imagined everyone at his funeral enjoying themselves except for the people who didn’t get it. He imagined trees that had lived before anyone he might have known, and would live for longer than they ever could. He imagined the world decaying beyond repair. He imagined the universe expanding. He imagined lots of things. Then the train stopped and he left the subway car. Then he forgot to imagine. And lost it all forever.
My favourite saying in the world is, “my best years are ahead of me.” I’m 23. Strong. Independent. Opposite of ‘languishing’. Floating about - as all twenty-somethings do. Wiling away my time in the ‘wings’ of ‘this great play’. The play is titled ‘Life’. Credited to ‘God’. Some say he didn’t actually write it. They say he had a ‘ghostwriter’. Ha. I don’t believe in ghosts. Apparently God and J.D. Salinger are friends. They both live in exile. No one knows what either looks like. Although God did have a famous son once. He was an author too. Died tragically of course, as all good writers do. David Foster Wallace was a friend of his. As was Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.
I just read this story on the local newspaper resource, The Age Dot Com, about ‘our best years being ahead of us’.
“A study of US super-centenarians aged 110-119 found that about 40 per cent needed little assistance or were independent, ’suggesting that super-centenarians are not more disabled than are people aged 92 years’.”
“They say that if current trends continue, more than half the babies born since 2000 in wealthy nations such as Australia will celebrate their 100th birthdays.”
Compare me as an infant to, say, a 58 year old. Starting my life, fresh out of the proverbial womb, with no teeth and difficulties ‘moving my bowels’. (Sorry dad. I know 58 year olds rarely have either of those things. It was a ‘metaphor’ to help the story ‘move forward’.) Now jump 23 years ahead and I’m 81. That’s a good chunk of life right there. That’s my entire life span so far. What will I want to achieve in those years? Will I print off a quote on my hologram computer to hang above my bed reading, “Just enjoy life”?
Maybe most of it will be spent sleeping. The dream world will be the only place left to explore. What a great life this is. Are you having fun? Isn’t this absurd!?
How does it feel to be 102 years old, with so many children of children of children below you, each one looking up and waving hello? When your children’s children are 43 and their children are fighting wars? How does it feel to see a fifth generation struggle to be cool? Does it make you laugh? Does it make you smile? Does stink? Does it ruin? Does it fuck you up?
Or does it make you see all the things they can’t?
“I first heard this when they supported David Bowie in the early 1980s at “VFL Park”. They upstaged David Bowie.? I kid you not.” - Youtube comment written to signify the importance of Australian culture over imports from other countries.
Hello dear readers. How are thee? Well, I suppose? That is marvelous.
This band is called Fucked Up. They are very good. Although I’m not sure if I desperately want to be at one of their gigs, or fear dying if I were to ever set foot in one of their so called ‘moshpits’. Looks more like ‘the armpit of hell’ if you ask me. Must smell like it too.
Has an alaskan ice-shelf crawled into New York City or what? It’s freezing. It’s wet. It’s cold. It’s damp. The weather here is stoopid.
I’ve taken shelter in this little library in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Its temperature is temperate, with a high of children and a late sweeping low of old people, one carrying a porn. I think it’s in Czech. WTF?
By the way, I’ve almost finished my folio. Soon I’ll be on the hunt for a job. Anyone got a job and visa combination you might like to give me? I’ll write you ads in exchange for food at the very least. Maybe even shelter in Gramercy Park. That might be nice. Lemme know courteous readers, you can find my email somewhere here.
Here! t at taitischia dot com.
P.S. Don’t you hate it how we gotta do that these days to not get a visit from the spam man? Hopefully you guys are hip to the tune of figuring out the email riddle above.
Are you consistently late to pick-up on the latest internet trends? Do you ever feel like the laggard in that stupid marketing graph? Does it make you question your validity as a connoisseur of the wwworld? A virtual flaneur? A ‘digital native’? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel less of a person. But then I realise I am special. I am worth money in the virtual webula. I am worth something to the world.
Maybe if I had been first to this Virtual Knee Surgery website my life would be different. Maybe I would be “Tait, the knee surgeon”. Maybe I would own a mansion equipped with several trapdoors. Maybe my future children would refer to me as a ‘cool dad’ when they talk to their friends at high school. Maybe this will be me. But I need to dream big. I need to Innovate. I need to subscribe to blogs. I need to RSS the entire webernet. I will learn to adapt to this new internet life.
I don’t think I could live in the post-apocalyptic world. All those people living underground, trying their best to survive, scavenging for lemon peels and rat-meat. I’d rather die. You do know the poles are going to dramatically shift in December, 2012 right? You don’t? Eeeeeeeee. Sorry about that. It’s best not to think about it. It’s a little like The Game. Does anybody know The Game? Oh dear! The Game is nuts. Whether you know it or not, check out this crazy website. Some bananas reckon the world is going to lose the game on the 9th of September 2009. Anyway, the point is, learn the game, then remember to forget the poles are gonna shift. That’s what you do.
By the way, did you know the universe is expanding? Can you contextualise space? Everything outside our own universe is just a concept! There are no rules! How terrifying! How beautiful! Let’s take acid! We’ll forget where we are and the room will fill with smoke! Our minds will bend like time-space! Let me outta hereeeeeeeeeeee!
