I Will Be Gone

If we're lucky we get seventy-five years of life and another fifty or sixty years of near-life in the hearts and minds of others. But I'm not a lucky person. I think the world will forget me sooner than that. Nothing I've ever done has been chiseled in stone. And my writing in the sand is already being washed away by water and wind. I feel myself eroding as I speak. I am a small fire that warmed a body or two for a moment or two and then burned out. Time will pass, the rains will come, and my embers will grow cold.

When I die I will be gone. All my thoughts, all my feelings, everything I was or could ever be will pass from the world with my last breath. My life means nothing, I know that. I fill space. I watch the clock. I morn myself. My personality will disappear. My body will quickly decay. And soon, very soon the memory of me will be all that remains. But a life in memory is no life at all. And the few brain cells that cling to my image will die also. And with their passing, the cup of me will be drained.

If someone reads this passage after I'm dead, know that somebody labored over it once; chose their thoughts and words carefully; and set their aching fingers on a keyboard when they could have laid their head on a pillow instead. You are seeing that brief instant when a flame flickered, burned strongly for a short while and then died out. Every human is a biography in flesh; every year on earth a page; every face encountered a footnote. Watch your fingers on my edge. Even a voice ancient and forgotten may draw blood.