"A Certain Kind of Death"
they say.
The kind when no one knows you've passed.
Until strangers smell what's left of you
A few weeks later.

The kind that leaves no memory,
No living person to hold onto
the ephemeral trappings -
the thousands of little choices
that surrounded and defined you.

It's death at its most unsentimental.
Death at its rudest.

No one to lament your loss.
Only a public administrator
that calls you "the decedent"
and tries to figure out
whether or not you will end up in "public dispo".

A mass grave
marked only by the year.
With 1600 others that shared your lonely fate.

It's a documentary I watched a few days ago,
while drinking a chocolate protein shake at work.

"That will never happen to me"
I thought to myself,
forgetting that death "happens" to everyone,
and those people with decomposed mouths agape
probably thought the same thing
when breath filled their bodies with life.

And then there was yoga last night.
And Diane, the instructor, had us meditate.
Knees lower than hips, legs crossed, eyes closed.
"Your thumb is the past.
Your index finger is the future.
Where they touch is now - the present moment.
Enjoy this for what it is - the Life Force. This gift."

We have such little time.

Don't we.

I work out at a gym
with a lot of senior citizens.
I think they think it's the Lions Club
or something.

They seem to be there for hours on end,
laughing and comparing aches and pains.

Colorful conversations.

This morning in the showers,
a guy with an accent I think was Russian
was jibing someone saying,
"Bush screws you with no vaseline,
and you STILL vote Republican!"
raising his arm in the air
and laughing so loud the tile reverberated.

I overheard another conversation in the steam room,
where I was trying to soften the hair on my face
so my raw shave would not be quite
so raw...

They were talking about high school.
"When did you graduate?"
"1964. How about you?"
"1949".

I graduated in 1994.
Here was my reverse doppelganger.

Later, at the sinks,
I struck up a conversation with this 75 year old man.
He told me when he was in high school
he stocked shelves at Woolworth's
for 35 cents an hour.

35 cents an hour.

He bought his first car brand new for 1900 dollars.
"You can't even get new tires for that now",
he said.

Used to go to a "show"
(that's what the older generation calls movies)
for 25 cents.

I didn't ask him what he thought about gas prices these days.
I bet I would have gotten an earful,

and I was already late for work,
arms swollen from a bicep workout.