by Sean Murphy.
We’re going to discover some things.
For starters: who was paying attention
to the long-suffering flight attendant
when she went through the motions of
how to go through the motions of dying?
We’ll see who screams first, who covers
their eyes, and who gives two shits
about the well-being of anyone but themselves;
who prays, who panics, and who can sleep
through anything.
All of us will have the rarest of opportunities
to see what we’re all about. Take yourself,
for instance: did you live every moment
as if it might be your last? Are you ready
to give up anything for another second?
Do you now fear paradise lost and are you
abruptly prepared to make all kinds of bargains,
however absurd?
And what about all the choices you made
and don’t get to make, ever again?
All those meals not eaten, vacations not taken,
music or movies never discovered,
friends never made (or lost), jobs neither taken
(nor lost), hair not grown gray or gone altogether,
not able to savor (or suffer) through the slow implosion
of your bones and organs, the slow dance of death
freeze-framed forever, a bomb dropped
by the indifferent designs of either a higher power
or the uncoiled machinations of Nothing.
Suddenly cancer isn’t so awful, especially
if that could buy you another decade or two
before receiving this death sentence. Dying
of old age is asking for a lot, you’ll agree,
but why not a heart attack or massive stroke,
or a lightning strike, or a swarm of exotic bees
chasing you into the afterlife? Anything
except seeing the past tense flash before
terrified eyes all around you, everyone
given the most ironic gift of prophecy—
this odd lottery win where everyone loses.
Did you take your marriage vows seriously,
or else regret never securing a soulmate—
for this world or whatever comes after?
(Alone here, lonely there.) Were you a good friend
or father or son, or something you can cling to,
with pride, as these seconds slip away?
What about your carbon footprint?
Is your conception of recycling amended
as you consider what’s about to happen
to your mortal remains, once the clean-up
crew is done and, like everyone else with skin
in the post-game, you’re meat for all the creatures
that thrive in the dirt, efficiency experts
since the beginning of time? Do you wish
you’d worried about any of this ontology
when it might actually have mattered?
Do you believe in miracles? Do you
have the audacity to dream of any scenario
in which you survive—rising
from the wreckage, remaining above the waves,
bobbing on blood and oil, unappealing to the sharks
but a magnet for the rescue pilot’s radar?
That hero they’ll make a movie about—
featuring a prominent actor—which your life,
immortal on the screen,
would never have inspired?