I Am Dead. Won’t You Join Me?

by Grant Schreiber, who writes of himself: “I remain Grant Schreiber, in the great city of Chicago where one can see civilization in the death throes up-close. Despite city streets there is a lot of green, a thriving coyote population, an increasing number of birds that normally don’t appear in this area. Almost as if there is something going askew. Everywhere.”

“I do confess to having a morbid fascination with DOOM, having been raised in the thrilling Cold War when at any moment the USSR and the US would press the button and blow us to atoms. I greatly like zombie apocalypse movies, tv-shows and comic books where the End of the World isn’t anyone’s fault. It is a blameless form of global destruction and the main reason I suspect they are so popular.

.

I Am Dead. Won’t You Join Me?

It is sometime between now and then.

It is Spring and I haven’t fully recovered from that fall I took

on the ice two months ago.

Doctors demand cash up front and cash is

hard to come by since Things Got Worse.

I am dreaming of chocolate which hasn’t

been available for awhile.  I am hobbling

and worrying about my knee

and not paying attention to the people in the

Food Riot,  the fourth one since New Year.

The warning shot falls just over the heads

of the crowd and hits on the left side, just

below  the heart.  It isn’t safe anymore to

carry identification on you as the

Dying State can use it to punish your family.

I join several others in an unmarked grave

just on the other side of town where the poor

people used to live. The soil turns black and

rich and becomes a field of flowers.

It is sometime between now and then.

It is Summer and water is hard to find

despite being so close to the lake.

Something about the algae bloom

can’t be filtered or boiled out and bleach

is also hard to find.

It is too hot to think about anything.

I have to sit down, just for a bit, under

the shade of a dead tree and catch my

breath.  I never stand back up.

Flies are there within two minutes,

exploring my open mouth and visiting

my sinus cavity.  Birds pluck my hair

and beard to reinforce their nests,

a lucky crow takes my eyes, the empty

sockets a further invitation to explore.

 I rot quickly in the heat.

It is sometime between now and then.

It is Autumn and leaves of the trees never

appeared to fall.  I have finally lost all that

weight I gained as an American consumer.

 I’m thin and trim at last and close to death

from starvation.   My thoughts are

muddled, hallucinatory,  and infrequent.

I’m losing my hair my teeth my sight

my hearing.  In scrambling for food

I cut my hand and die of tetanus a few

days later.  The exact cause hardly matters.

My starved body is a feast for other

creatures and they use it well going so far to

crack the nutshell of the skull to eat the

brain.  Good for something at last.

It is sometime between now and then.

It is Winter and I no longer care if

I live or die.  I leave shelter for some half

forgotten reason and am gripped by cold.

And suddenly I am cold no longer.

I feel so hot I take off my coat and

sweater.  I drop my hat and gloves.

It is a miracle! I have found a hot spot

to soak into my skin.

My body is not discovered until after

the thaw.   The people are worried a bear

must be in the area but it is mice and birds

and snow and ice that have mauled my

corpse and disfigured me so thoroughly.

It is sometime between now and then.

In whatever season I go, let me be. Leave

my body to have one final use before you

join me with all the other extinct animals.