He decided he would die and then
drove through mortality,
a motorcyclist in heavy traffic. He
was afraid for his dog, which he had
loved and abused. The neighbor said no
to taking it, but he died anyway and
the dog—no one knows. Cigarette butts
and dogshit left in the litter of his lawn.
*
She was afraid she would die, as though
it were hypothetical, but of course
she would die. That inevitability
functioned as an ointment on a rash. The
unblemished skin of her sensibility: she
she decided, she was not afraid she
would die. She adopted the
end as a form of rationality.
*
He died a long time ago now, so it is
surprising that his death feels still so
sharp. In the months before his death, he told his
friend “not to fuck it up.” Advice
whose pronoun lingers ambiguously. Who
was talking to whom. And only over the
phone could one hear his southern accent,
death being about distance, another geography. He
romanticized his determination not to
romanticize his fast-approaching death. Not
to fuck it up. What it means to die when
everyone is dying and everyone who is
dying is dying of the virus. His mother said
he drove her crazy, the way he died,
maddening, not in fear exactly, but
anxiety about the details. How
he checked in to a hospice, but then
changed his mind, got on a bus
and went back to where he’d lived,
as though he’d had a home and wanted
to die at home.
*
They loved each other and then they
made a child together and so it seemed
that all was seamless and they had nothing
to fear. But then their son became sick
and they feared his death more than
their own. He died anyway, in a halo
of dread, in his unfinishedness. He died.
And they feared the next thing, and the
next. They feared the anniversary of
his birth, but even more the anniversary
of his death, which proved all that they
most feared: that what they made with
their love didn’t last. That he was
gone.
*
She was very old. Her step was
light and deft. She never
said she was afraid to die. She never
mentioned dying. But she was
afraid of betrayal. Her son who
stole from her. Her friends who
died and left her behind. Her
memory that crept away in
malice from her still-supple
body. Until all the lack that she
feared was all that was left. Betrayed
by her own mind, the trace
of her that remained. That distinct
laugh she had. The irony she clung
to: she remembered that she had
forgotten.
*
He would use a different
word than “fear.” More like
“apprehension,” a word
that can signify unease
or gaining a grasp on
the matter. For him,
to be afraid is almost
a physical grace, a body
declining softly into its
ambivalence.
*
She is afraid that others will have to
clean up after her. She is afraid
they will not retain what she wants them
to retain. She is afraid her children
will continue fighting after she has
died. She is constantly afraid
of becoming incontinent. She is
afraid that if she falls down, she
will not be able to get back up. With
a friend who is similarly
afraid, she practices lowering
herself to the floor. They
try and try to find ways to stand
back up.
*
Now, she is different. She is
afraid only that, having
made the decision, having
“done a dry run for my death,”
she will not die efficiently. “Help,”
she says vigorously, “Help. Help.
Help. Help.” And even a stranger
knows that she is asking for
help in getting it done.
*
He once was she, and the world
often forced him back to the state
that obtained before
the death of that she.
It scared him when he was
called by her name, his “deadname.” The
name of a person who is dead but
whom the DMV, the clinic, the
police can conjure back into
existence, how she could kill
him over and over in legal
technicalities. Frightening
when no death suffices, when
every witness concurs: there’s
been no death, no death at all.
*
First he says he is not ill,
and then not very ill, and
then that he will not die.
Anger is suspiciously
like fear. As is defiance.
But as he dies, it is as though
he is wandering a strange
room, considering it from different
angles, and at the end, sadness
instead of fear. Sadness and,
yes, some anger, but only
at the memory of the dog
he was forced to leave
behind in that room, that
hotel room, the dog waiting
as he left, always that
presence alert behind the door,
as he walked away into homelessness.
*
He believes he is not afraid
to die. He has been very ill
at times: it was interesting
how easy it was to be ill,
to feel living as irrelevant. But
he is afraid for those he
would leave behind, the ones
he feels responsible for. And isn’t
this the animating delusion of
the world? That one is
necessary to the world? He
doesn’t want to consider
that what he holds as
duty, perhaps virtue, would
more accurately be
named as fear.
*
What did she fear more? Her death or
her own rage? Muddy whirlpool of
control stirring loss of control. What did
she fear that she loved or hated? How long
is a text message if continuously written over
the course of a single frenzied hour? How
long is the walk after she’s jumped
from the moving car, cursing her spouse
and her family? What is so frightening
about being wrong? Was she never wrong?
And who will ever know? How did she
die? In her fear, she left before
she could tell us. All
that we will never know.
*
Not long before he died, it was his
birthday. Mute—mostly mute—by then,
he nonetheless said, “That’s
so good” as he savored
a piece of chocolate. To neither
know nor fear that death is
impending. To be assuaged,
actually comforted, that death
is not pertinent. To rest
with the sweet in his mouth,
while his daughters looked
on in panic at his endless
passing.