“A Season, Ended”

c. 2019 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(1-19)

Over.

Mortal life is a season, with limits defined by chronology. A beginning, in birth. A journey of some sort, often told as a story. A climax, perhaps more than one. Then, finality. Termination of self. Negation. The end of days. For the atheist, what follows is a vacuum. For the faithful, something more. A mystery unknown, yet written about for thousands of years.

In recent days, for this writer, a nagging sense of having overstayed my welcome has become palpable. More so with each passing hour. A sense of being at a party, long after the hosts have succumbed to liquor and fatigue, and the other guests have gone home. Sitting alone on the couch, I ponder. Peering over crushed cans, emptied bottles, snack debris, and a television buzzing to itself. Flashing unseen images with ironic futility. Why? Why am I still here in the temporal continuum?

Why am I still at the party?

Friends have died with more purpose. Family members have gone who inspired more love. Noted figures, artists, leaders, stewards, performers and such. All justified in thinking, if they did, that their time was taken away too quickly. Meanwhile, here I sir. Sniffing stale Doritos and flat Miller High Life. Picking at cheese chunks going dry, with a toothpick. Wonder, glorious wonder.

Why was I selected to live? A lottery? Roulette Wheel? A chance drawing of makeshift ballots from the brown paper bag of eternity? To simply accept good fortune feels lazy. Not disciplined enough.

I recalled the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson. An event which crashed my world in 2005. As a scribe of consequence, rebellious auteur of his own life adventure, I reckoned he would write until the final moment of conscious thought. Perhaps even afterward, channeled through some medium or in a vision received by his readers. Yet the exit came after penning a short note which was later published in Rolling Stone:

Football Season Is Over

“No more games. No more bombs. No more walking. No more fun. No more swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. 67. You are getting greedy. Act your age. Relax – This won’t hurt.”

At the time, I felt cheated. Hunter taking his own life? It seemed out of character. Preposterous! A man aged 67. He should have written to 77 or 87 or 97 or… until that last breath had passed his lips.

My own father, a wordsmith and author for almost 90 years, wrote regularly until just before his final tumble toward oblivion. It was my duty to follow. Making one deadline after another, just as I had in the newspaper game. Work, work, work. Going to press! Ink in my veins. Text on my back pages. A tome left for the ages.

But here I sat, in the aftermath. Party over, surrounded by bottles and cans and crunched-up Fritos ground into the upholstery. Guacamole, lonely in the dish. Solitary. Feeling cold. 57 and already retired for two years. Dwindling mobility due to battered shoulders, worn knees, and a disintegrated hip. Losing my vision and hearing. Out of work and luck.

Again, the question crackled between my ears. Why?

I could not discuss this dark emotion freely, for fear of loosing it into the world. I reckoned friends or family members would misunderstand. So my mouth stayed shut. Thus, the echoes grew louder. Like waves created by a skipping stone. Why, why, why? Why am I still here… why here… why, why, why. The unstated inference was that I should go elsewhere. That I should leave the party aftermath. But in a spiritual sense, in terms of my nagging vision, my daydream, what would that entail?

I felt obligated to leave. Destined, fated, pushed, encouraged, to leave the remnants of celebration behind. To end the awkward mood that had me looking around for someone else who had survived the night. Someone, anyone?

Actor George Sanders spoke with more brevity in his own farewell. But using sardonic wit not unlike HST:

“Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool – good luck.”

My stint on the couch continued. I counted each condition. 57. Unemployed, disabled, retired. Out of circulation. Companion only to my old dog. A Black Labrador Retriever. Author of books, composer of songs. Scribbler of illustrations. Fallen like the mighty. Humbled in the dark. Out of breath. Out of time. Spent like a cigar. I felt something other than depression. A vibe not generated by the need to escape. Instead, I felt finished. As if my turn in the competition had been completed. My dance, my song, my stand-up routine. Done and duly noted.

My time at the party, expired.

Wendy O. Williams spoke with much forethought about her choice to leave:

“For me, much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and to a place where there is no self, only calm. Love always...”

While my out-of-place guilt persisted, I tried to conjure some ethic to deal with the mood. A saving regimen. Deliverance from the ending of self. Yet instead of gloom, the twisted-up angst brought me back to where I began. Huddled over my father’s typewriter, in the basement office. Tapping away with childish ideas that had only begun to form. I reckoned as a kid, as a broken, middle-aged man and as a voyager at the end of earthly travel, my vantage point would be the same. Ready to write. Ready once again to tell the story.

And so, it has come to pass.

As I left my imaginary party, bidding farewell to Hunter, to George, to Wendy, and all the others, this moment of doubt and analysis yielded what had always come before and what would ever be my place. At the desk, cane by my side. Keyboard at the ready.

Ready, to write.

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