28 years

To be able to live knowing that life was a short, sweet melody, and not a long-winded song. A snappy vignette of the best parts. No flim flam. Boo hooey.

Being able to indulge in shameless debauchery, knowing you didn’t have to preserve your body, for use beyond those splendid 28 years. 28 years spent in some sort of quarter-coma and bursts of prodigious lucidity, wafting about much like the fragrance of a lily-of-the-valley. Riding along on substance and liquid alone. Wearing otherworldly psychedelic sunglasses that tint the present day, a colourful shade of the past. Bearing only netherworldly intentions.

A rebel without a cause. Without disguise. Without guile. Just all the bile. After a heavy night with the effervescent golden gods. Waking up the next morning, to the sound of the gods hammering away at your medulla. You acquiesce them with hair of the dog. A peace offering. All you care about is going higher, hitting the zenith of madness. Hit the road Jack. Remember all tomorrow’s parties. Remember little else.

But what would I do if I could count my days to the last breath? Would I play pretend? Would I theorise and philosophise, the possibilities of life in a different era, while I dedicate the present to impious indulgence? Would I make my life an ode to megalomania? Or perhaps a tribute to wasting? And wasting away? Would I sell my soul to the Devil for a lifetime of evil pleasures at my beckoning?

In a life that would end before responsibilities began, in a life that would end before true love’s honeymoon came to an end… I’d surrender to life.

To risks. I’d live recklessly, fearing not the dreaded tomorrow. I’d take the plunge. I’d taste things the way they’re meant to be…without trepidation coating my taste buds. I’d love like there was no tomorrow, because there would be no tomorrow. Glad to meet you; it was my pleasure and all pleasure. Free-falling. Free of the thought of failing. Songs to be written, poetry to be experienced, verse to immerse in. With a peg to nurse and a pug to pet. All the sleep to catch up on. So much of it. Without the ink of bad memory drawing out a detailed pattern of insomnia. No more skeins of stress staining my sleep. The forty winks that only a man with no time deserves.

Days dedicated to getting intoxicated on the sublimation of self. Notebook by side. And warm candlelight. Thoughts that wax eloquent on sufficient lubrication pour forth onto papyrus. A legacy in a thousand letters, with nary a fetter. 

There’d be too little time. And yet, not a minute in surplus.

The End would come at the 28^th hour of the 28^th year. I would wait with my suitcase, stuffed with words and worth. Life would be snuffed out in an instant. I'd play my part dutifully with a few snuffs and puffs. A few hours of messy heaving. And then dry heaving, when little remains but the spirit…readying itself for flight. In the arms of an angel I'd go. 

Far away from here.