Astrid’s mom can see and speak to the dead. She’s upset because her dad passed away trying to save the Amazon.
He was eaten by piranhas.
At least she got to see her pops again after a murderous youth tried to trade her soul for his return to the living.
Today, eleven years ago my old man passed away in a hospital bed. Unlike Astrid, I haven’t been lucky enough to see my old man again. No surprise, she lives in a fictional world, and I live in the real one, where the horrors really do happen.
Gandalf the Grey walks by wearing a white tank top and black shorts carrying a green bag along with his staff. He’s shaven everything except his long bushy mustache. Looks like the fictional characters are making their way to our own world.
Being in some clinic’s waiting room surrounded by the sick is ironically a sickening experience in itself. I detest these places, but one can waste a lot of time on sadness and anger– it’s not worth it.
I need to remember the old man is having a blast up in the sky talking to John Lennon while Rick James walks by with Mary Jane. He ain’t got anything to worry about anymore and that’s quite alright.
I can see him alive and well standing next to Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy nearly 41 years ago– immortalized in a major motion picture.
I light a heart-shaped candle and surround it with photographs of him. We pray the rosary for him. My glass shattered watch marks 8:19 p.m. One decade, 365 days since.
The moon is full, and the night is cool. I feed the mare a red apple, but I drop it once, then twice trying not to get bit. I stick the apple to the cyclone fence.
“I await you in my dreams tonight, pops. Tell me all about the commodities exchange before I join you in the afterlife.”
My clock keeps ticking, but when will it stop?