Waking up dead

Some days I wake up dead and some days I wake up alive. I've never been able to work out what the pattern of it is.

When I'm dead it's always dark, I'm always inside, and everything's exactly the way I left it. I can set a dish of ice cream on the coffee table and it will still be there the next time, with the spoon still stuck in it ready for the next bite. There are probably windows out there somewhere, but somehow the idea isn't relevant.

When I'm alive it's completely different. Things have been going along without me but just all of a sudden I'm there and I know exactly what I'm supposed to do and I remember everything that happened up until then, even though it's a complete surprise. There's no adjustment period, I just slip right into it. Sometimes I'm right in the middle of a conversation and the next word pops out without a hitch. Or I could be in an airplane, or making love, or falling down the stairs, and then all of a sudden I'm back in the room in the dark.

I'm dead right now. I don't feel like any ice cream so I just stick it in a corner. It will still be there later but it doesn't matter if I put it far enough away. There are magazines under the coffee table but it's too dark to read. There's probably a light switch somewhere but it's not an issue. Even the light in the refrigerator doesn't work. Electricity could be off. There's never any noise unless I make it. I think, what if I started screaming, but I don't feel like screaming. Calm. Very calm. Sometimes you can imagine a train in the distance or a police siren but it can't be real. I can hear myself breathing, hear my heart beating if I'm very still. Even though I'm dead. If I close my eyelids and roll my eyes, there are bright flashes. The only light there is. I pull the blanket around myself, curl up. Try to sleep, would like to sleep, but it never works. There's an oyster fork under the couch. Must have fallen there. I could put it back in the drawer with the others, but there'll always be time for that. What I can do now is this. I'm not writing it. I just think it and it's there. Forever. The words will always be there just the way I left them. Hanging in the air like a layer of alphabet soup. I push them and they spin and tumble. I can hold them in place with toothpicks, or, when they dry, scotch tape. There could be scotch in the liquor cabinet underneath the hutch, but it isn't an issue. Who needs booze when you're dead?

What do you need when you're dead? Not time. There's all the time in the world. But there's no boredom, no impatience, no longing, no fear, no dread, no regrets. Sometimes I think I like death better than life. You're not supposed to cry here. Actually it doesn't work. It sort of just doesn't come up. Like sleep. I think the most important think is to keep it going. Hold it there, keep it all here in the open. Where else does it need to be? Life. Everything moving around, always changing places. Putting things away, throwing things away, organizing things. Why put things away? No one will ever touch them. Leave them where they are. That's not the issue. The important thing is to be here. You don't need to be anywhere else. Everywhere is the same. What matters here is what happens when all that stops.