I’ve put on the red earmuffs. They’re thick and obvious and mute even the decibels of a full metal jacket round fired from a big bore rifle on the shoulder to within tolerable limits. They say ‘leave me alone right now.’ They declare ‘it’s best we don’t speak.’ It is my warning that my fuse runs short.
What are we? What are people? Some creature formed for the pleasure of deity? Some chance outcome of brutal survivalism? No one knows. No one can know. It is unknowable. And so the earmuffs are on and I type.
What’s on my mind? What am I thinking about? Why do only those who seek earnestly to analyze me for their benefit truly listen intently? I suppose it’s the intent itself, as most listeners have none, as though they do me favor to humor me. My mother listens intently, but to show love. As if to say “I love you” by the very manner in which she receives my words.
This is how intensely I learned life. Something real and meaningful. Something that must matter, or cannot matter at all. And in my forties I discover it’s the latter. I am an amoeba that won’t register as having existed in eternity. I am nothing. Only the pain and the love I feel. I am extreme, and that’s all I am. A flame, burning intensely before fizzling rapidly to as if never having burned at all.
And I love it. And it’s okay for it to end forever.