Gerald Died Alone

On July 27th, 2001, Gerald died alone.

Were his 75 years –years of pleasure and pain, triumph and tragedy, love returned and rebuffed- squashed to a scant several seconds, flashing fatefully in a vanishing, valedictory vision?

Did he depart docilely, heeding William Cullen Bryant’s advice to “approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams?”  Or did he fall into the chasm screaming and struggling, after clinging to the crumbling cliff of mortality?

Did the bells ring in his brain a terse tintinnabulation of terror, a dread declaration of death, a haunting harbinger of the hereafter? Did dearly-departed decedents descend, whispering wistfully “It is time?”

Was the Reaper the awful apparition of old, bedecked in black, swinging his scythe, his crimson eyes piercing pinpoints placed in a gaping skull, or was he the decorous, discreetly-dressed dandy from that episode of The Twilight Zone?

Was Gerald aware and awake, thumping his throbbing chest, wretched realization rising in his throat, or did he softly succumb, sleeping on the sofa, effortlessly evanescing into eternity?

Did he seek solace in the Scriptures, consider the Koran, unlock the Upanishads, or ask audience of the Almighty?  Maybe his mind moved to the mundane, and he thought of his 3:00 p.m. dentist’s appointment, suddenly moot.

Casting aside all superfluous speculation, abandoning all assumptions, all that we really know is this:

On July 27th, 2001, Gerald died alone.

© July 27, 2005 by Allan M. Heller