Dead and Alone

I decided that this was a good morning to have breakfast and coffee at Ikea. To tell you the truth, almost every day is a good day for breakfast at Ikea, but they don’t start serving until 9:30 and most days I’ve already eaten much earlier. I am not totally against eating two breakfasts every now and then, but to do it on a regular basis would make me fatter than I already am.

I usually have company when I go, but today I was alone. I do treasure my alone time, I am on my own schedule and I don’t have to pay attention to table manners. Most of the time when I am alone in a restaurant, I spend my time reading. Sometimes I will pause and watch the people around me, wondering what their stories are. Sometimes it is easy to figure out and other times I will just make things up that make me laugh. Very seldom I will do some writing, but whenever I have, it has been enjoyable.

I am not one of those people that like to be alone. Well, I do like to be alone, but I like to choose to be alone and not have to be alone. I was thinking about this today and other than for a weekend here and there, I have never been alone in my life. You can be alone in a crowd, and often I feel that way but I have never really been alone. I don’t think I would like it very much, and I have told Louise that I need to be the first one to die. She just looked at me and said “Sure, that works for me.”

It seems that I’m not the only one that had that thought.

The worst time I had at work, was when I drove a truck. It was awful! There was no one to talk to for most of the day and I ended up having conversations with myself. Normally I agree with most of what I say, but to never have a different opinion just drives you nuts. Both I and me would agree that the guy who cut us off was an asshole. We would agree when a customer was rude or had no sense of humour. Sometimes I would have to give myself shit when I made a mistake and I’d tell me to think up a good excuse to tell the boss, or we would be neck deep in shit.

It wasn’t the best of times, and it became just like those times when you are in a group and find yourself just out of phase with everyone else. People are all around and it is like you are in a bubble, the sound is muffled and the real world is a little blurry. When I was younger, I could blame the drugs, but I still get that same effect and I guess it is due to the ravages of old age.

I wonder if you are alone when you die. I’ve heard that all of your loved ones come to meet you when you die, but I wouldn’t imagine they would hang around for too long. They must have stuff they were doing before you died and they would be anxious to get back at it. Sort of like a reverse funeral I would imagine. You would be lying there, dead, people would come in playing music and singing and the next thing you know you would be better than alive. You would say hi to everyone you hadn’t seen since they died and I guess hugs all around. I am not fond of hugging now; I can’t imagine death will change my opinion.

Perhaps there would be snacks and coffee, maybe some juice, but eventually people would start looking at their watches and whispering to each other “How long do we have to stay? I’ve got shit to do!” They would grab their coats, come over to shake your hand and promise that we will get together real soon. This would happen over and over until the only ones left would be you and the guy waiting to lock the place up. I would look at the guy and ask him what do I do now, where do I go?

“Hey buddy, I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here.”

So, here I am, standing on a cloud…dead and alone.