In My Hour of Dying...

I will not count down the minutes.

No. I will roll off of her, and playfully slap her bare bottom.

I might even light a smoke. A cigarette used to be good afterwards, back in the old days, the nicotine soothing after the vastly increased heart rate. Besides, why the hell not?

I will definitely sip whiskey, a good bourbon that tingles sweet and smoky like root beer against the tip of my tongue. I will close my eyes as it spreads its familiar fire, flushing my heart and belly with warmth while it slowly leaches through me. But mostly, I bid the toxins come to soothe unsteady nerves.

I will tug into my boots, so that I might die as I lived, tooth and nail.

I will go outside. I will invite The End to meet me beneath the sun, or the stars. As The End chose the time, I shall choose the place.

I will lean my back hard against the rough bark of an oak tree and scratch a dog’s ears. Those ears will be soft, like velvet in my stiffening fingers.

I will look back with fading sight on a life well lived, thankful for those who shared the journey, who helped along the way, and who gave it purpose.

I will recall a line from Shakespeare...

“Golden lads and girls all must,

as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”

... and I will consider what was written, what the letters and the spaces between them force us to consider; that in the end we are all equal, regardless of station, that we all quiver beneath the wonder of it all, and at what lies ahead.

Finally, I will reach into the back pocket of my jeans for the tattered paperback that is there. I will read a few stained, and yellowed paragraphs. I will find some little bit of comfort in it’s familiar words before marking my place with another folded down corner.

And then, like the untold number of “golden lads,” and “chimney-sweepers” before me, I will lay back my head, relax, and let go of my weary body.

“I too shall come to dust.”