Sunday evening

I’ve just had a full-on attack of consciousness. 

Wandering about the flat of a Sunday evening, I mixed myself an Aperol spritz in the kitchen and said out loud in my voice:

“Have to get up early tomorrow.” 

That was it. 

Nothing more profound, and Wow! Fuck!

There I am seeing myself alive, conscious and aware in this great big fucking universe.  Sharing space with the sun and Saturn, Jupiter’s moons that Galileo spied through his telescope and here I am – doing my stint, following in the tradition of such notables as Sophocles, Thomas More, John Lennon and my uncle Jack, walking around on the ground and thinking about it. 

Fuck! 

It’s almost too much to bear. 

I haven’t spoken again since.  It wouldn’t be the same. 

It would reduce the whole thing to a gimmick or a game. 

That was the moment. 

That was it. 

Where the whole thing was revealed for what it is. 

The Now rolls past like a list of credits. 

Lennon: gone.  Uncle Jack: gone.  My dad: gone.  Mandela: gone.

Soon my kids will see my name roll past.  They might not even notice, but they will when theirs tags on the end.

It’s a universal truth.  I ain’t singling anyone out. 

And so the enormity, in the same instant, becomes trivial.  Why should we fear death? 

Dying, maybe – it’s never been claimed to be a barrel of laughs. 

But death, in itself, does not exist.  Only life exists.  We don’t worry about what happens to people before they are born, so why fret about after they die?  Only the bit in the middle counts, where I stood momentarily in open ground – caught in the search-light.  Living.  Speaking.

I am here.  I exist. 

The miracle is before us all.  We all exist and are able to reflect on this startling truth. 

Holy mother of God knows what.  What a fucking position to find yourself in of a Sunday evening. 

I’ve got to get up for work tomorrow.