JPG: Stories: Personal Post: the shadow

the shadow

By Guillermo Escudero

18 Aug 2009

I opened the gate that lead me to the urinal, it was late, I was tired, the light throwing a yellow tint on the overall picture of the bathroom.

There it was, a shadow, a little ant already dead, contemplating its own shadow at the bottom of the toilet bowl. How were those moments, right before death? the struggle and then the rendition, contemplating the last moments of life, the last few breaths, breathing the last gasps of air before the water filled the lungs and then the last vision, the shadow of the body looking back peacefully, quiet. A moment of self realization, a moment of enlightenment through another being, through the experience of the ant and its last breath. It all seem quiet now, I feel a little bit like a fool, taking a piss and thinking about death. Is this what old people do all the time, think and wait for death?

I get lost in my own thought.

Hey, may be I should write this!

I am done and still the the power of the moment overwhelms me, the last breath, wow! that's powerful, too intense to process, how do you share that? are we alone, being born was intense, the cold room the soft breasts filling me with nutritious milk, then the world, the noise the nuances, then growing up, waiting for the brain to develop, waiting so the knowledge can be assimilated with the primitive tools of the body and mind. The big question comes to my head and that is now that my body grew old, it's time to let go and leave everything behind, I don't know what will happen, when my body doesn't perceive anymore, this recyclable body is getting older and it's time to let go. I am only 39, that's the half way point for some, it's the end of a decade for me and the end of the count down. it's only a year away and I'll get the motorcycle, Veronica doesn't like the idea, she rather divorce me, I don't know what to say, it's an ultimatum, I still think that I can get away with it and still be married, only time will tell. For now I keep looking at that ant and say, Damn!