So This is How The World Will End: by Rick Castro
So this is how the world ends?…… I think not.
The last time I saw my mother Bee, she was smiling, wrapped in a bright pink blanket given to her by the YWCA. She was all smiles and effervescent, radiating light and happiness in her Alzheimer’s bubble. I told her I love her…. She nodded ok… I tried to tell my dad I love him, but he’s the recalcitrant type…. Even before he was diagnosed with the same disease.
Bee radiated this inner glow, a peace and happiness that only can be found living within your own thoughts. I wanted to take a photo, ( perhaps the last time) but alas, “I’d left my phone in the truck. It was raining, and I didn’t want to put my Rick Owens boots back on.
Too worried about recontamination.
All in all it seemed right it should be a memory, something that only I witnessed, because AL & Bee won’t remember what happened a minute later. It was not supposed to be captured on film. A temporary autonomous zone.
As every day becomes more of a challenge, I find comfort in the most simple things. Somehow I’ve always prepared for this… or was afraid of this… saw the omens many years ago and kept quiet. Didn’t listen to me gut. Which is all I have now.
As I’m writing these thoughts, pulled over in a bleak, deserted gas station on Atlantic Boulevard, A solitary man rides by on his bike with an attached trailer. A little doggy camper containing his beloved pet. Together they go zooming down the empty road. I find this so endearing. They have each other. A man and his dog at the end of the world.
Quiet,.. Solemn… Melancholy. I cling to this visual memory, the way I will cling on my visual of Bee smiling in her pink blanket, for the rest of my days.
After my composure, I make my way down Atlantic Boulevard in search of the cheapest gas.
I pass ambulance and emergency vehicles tending to an accident. As typical with accidents one is compelled to look. It is the solitary man, his bike in shambles, the little doggy camper is crushed to smithereens. The solitary man is wailing inconsolable on the sidewalk.
His beloved pet did not make it…..
So this is how the world will end.
copyright 3/19/2020
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