• There aren't many people who can say that they have been up close and personal with Death--so close that you can nearly make-out with its face, so close that you could reach and place a finger on Death's crotch, so close that if you were to unfreeze from the shock of calculating the short distance between you and Death, you could actually feel yourself on the edge of Death's personal bubble. There aren't many people who can say they have danced with Dr. Death.

    But I can.

    I've been close enough to Sir Death that my lips nearly touched the icy ones of Death. I have been close enough that I could have reached my hand and grabbed the stiff crotch of Death. And I have been close enough to realize that invading the personal bubble of Mr. Death wouldn't be a good idea, you know why?

    Cuz then I'd be dead.

    I'm getting ahead of myself, though. I still have a second of time.

    The moment I was given the choice and chose to connect my eyes to the eternally dark pools of Death's medium of vision, there was only one second left. In this one second your mind will never work so hard. Mounds of memories begin to be unfiled, and you try to sort through these files in order to grab one in particular that you can take with you. Take with you where? I don't have a ******** clue. But I think this is what some people confuse with the whole idea of "watching your life pass before your very eyes." That's all bullshit. Those flashes are only memories that don't even appear in order from beginning to present. It's all a jumble of random thoughts and past situations you wish you could have gotten out of. Much like this situation now, but there's is no need to worry about that at the moment. Back to the memories:

    There you are yesterday with your best friend, Ted, at Carls Jr. ordering number three, no onions, please.

    There you are only three feet tall, struggling to get more Easter eggs than Jacob because then you'll have more eggs than Jacob.

    There you are, your heart doing the weirdest gymnastics because Sarah is walking up to you and you know she's the one. You know she'll be your first. Your first kiss. Your first break-up. Your first moment of confusion.

    There you are, your mother yelling at you for not using the brain God gave you and so you were caught smoking weed in the bathroom on the first floor near the kitchen.

    There you are with Tina lying undressed beneath you, who turns into Adam, who turns back to Tina.

    There you are eating breakfast with your dad for what seems like the first time in forever.

    There you are huddled up with your favorite dog, Chuck, who has his favorite red squeaker in-between his choppers.

    There you are, the ground meeting your face during your first fistfight with Shakiro because he didn't like the look you gave him after he lost 21-17 at the basketball game that afternoon.

    There you are teaching your sister, Jenny, to ride her bike (no training wheels this time cuz I know you can do it!) and her face turns into yours truly.

    And you can't figure out which to carry with you. Carry where? I don't have a ******** clue.

    The out-of-sequence events of your life no longer flash before your eyes like the lights from a police car that you rode in once because you had a little too much to drink at Evelyn's party and you had wandered through the streets in the middle of the night.

    So as a result of not being able to choose from the tens of hundreds of memories in the first half of the one second you have left before Death's claw firmly clutches your pale, white, brown, black, red, green skin of your neck, you move on to more important things.

    Like taking just one small breath before the lights go out for reals this time. You wish to take one last breath so this time you can actually appreciate the oxygen that has been flowing in and out of your lungs for seventeen years, three months, and nineteen days. But for some goddamn reason you forget how to breathe, how to function. And you begin to feel all kinds of emotions all at once.

    Frustration because you want to remember how to breathe properly, but unfortunately that memory was stuffed back into the drawers next to the memories of not being able to breathe because you were drowning at Marina del Rey and not being able to breathe because Adam was—

    But memories were for the first half of this one second, so there isn't any time to go back and sift through the events of your life because you just have to remember how to breathe and be able to consume the scents of your surroundings because it had rained this morning and the smells of nature are at their best.

    Confusion because you begin to be disoriented from the lack of oxygen but in reality that wouldn't make sense cuz it has only been half a second and sometimes you don't even realize that you had stopped breathing and when you do, you begin to breathe again, so why can't you do it now?

    Denial because you don't believe this is actually happening and it's all just a very bad dream and this dream will be tucked away in the closet as soon as you wake up and find you can breathe again. Sweet, sweet morning air! But it isn't a dream and you tell yourself it is, and that really you aren't facing Dr. Death and watching it with eyes as wide as your mother's saucepan that she used to make your favorite blueberry waffles in and this is all just a bad dream like every other person says during a terrible situation, like being stuck in the United Airlines Flight 175 headed towards the South Tower, but you wouldn't know cuz you're here facing quite a different Death than those unfortunate souls of the sky. How different? I don't have a ******** clue.

    Regret because your dumbass was given a choice and you chose this one that leads only to one place and don't ask where, cuz I don't have a ******** clue.

    And in the final moment when your final second is about to end, you come to realize that, indeed, this is your final second, and in that final moment I am aware of my own mortality. So this is the end? And I didn't know Death could speak for Death replied: Indeed, yes. Indeed this is the end.

    yca. 11/27. 1:39 am