Full Circle

Am I supposed to quietly fade out of existence, like a blinking star or a guttering candle?

I am hurtling too fast down this ramshackle track of aging.

Is there a ghost town waiting for me over the next hill?

As the train emerges from the tunnel into the twilight, I can see rows of gravestones rising at awkward angles out of the dead leaves and high grass of the cemetery.

Stranded, as my loved ones leave me here—alone—I wait, like a beached whale thrown up by the sea, for the next wave, which does not arrive.

I feel too much like that beached whale.

Night falls.

Cool breezes replace the heat of the cruel sun.

A stranger walks alone on the beach.

Has he come to push me back into the life-giving sea? My whale flesh feels cold and dry to his touch. He peers into my dull blue eye.

I wonder if he can see the young whale swimming. Once again, in the ocean of pure consciousness.