Nothing to it

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY

BC PIRES

WORLD CUP going great, the both of Argentina and England in the second rounds, and Y’Boy amaze at how good life could be. One child back from England, next one ent leave yet and, as he look up from he computer, Y’Boy see the madam radiant in a yoga pose and Y’Boy know he coulda lime with whichever yogi did invent downward dog.

Most people who get one-them little moments of perception of the goodness does just snuggle down and enjoy the sweetness; Y’Boy problem is, how Y’Boy stop, the sweetest delight does invariably sour into a nagging worry ’bout when it will end.

Not the sweetness, eh, but the ability to contemplate it at all.

Y’Boy ask heself, “What sorrows fold up in the next few days, months, years, decades?”

The other night, Y’Boy sit down there on the couch throwing one eye on the TV and the latest firetruckeries Fat Nixon doing, half-wondering how Don Lemon and Bill Maher does keep up they own spirits while that fat firetruck slouching so relentlessly towards Bethlehem.

And he heart skip a beat.

Anybody over age 50 who ever get a fibrillation know how the moment does change even in the moment, how you does sit right up and wait to find out if your heart will skip another one. Y’Boy over 60 now and, on he father side, no male in the last six generations ever celebrate he 63rd bir’day.

And so Y’Boy hanging in the balance, in the moment.

And Y’Boy heart skip two beat.

See trouble now.

Y’Boy tune out everything, whole world come down to the centre of he chest and Y’Boy wait.

And wonder if this breath he holding is the last one.

And Y’Boy heart kick back in and Bill Maher jokes come back into he hearing and Y’Boy laugh.

And so it wasn’t then, then.

But this is where Y’Boy does jealous the believers. When the believers die, they have somewhere to go. And they life, even after it done, have, not just purpose, but plan. God make them for God own special purpose. That sweet.

But Y’Boy doesn’t have that.

Y’Boy know that this is all it have: this moment; this life; this breath.

No Heaven to go to after death and enough hell to catch while you alive.

And Y’Boy study how, even as he personal life getting better, the world going mad in front he eyes, led by a lunatic in the White House who only pleasure is to throw his over-fat weight around and who don’t care ’bout nothing excepting his next cheeseburger or to play heself for the admiration of dunces.

And Y’Boy feeling like a bystander at a crossroads, watching a 18-wheeler driven by a immoral manchild, a idiot savant-without-the-savant, pedal-to-the-metal, racing full-speed to a intersection where people crossing the road; and is like only Y’Boy see that the onliest thing that will stop disaster for all is death for many, the pile of bodies under the wheels that fat firetruck will use as brakes; and, even when the supposed survivors climb out the American truck and look down at what they have done, not even them self will feel any joy. All is vanity, and what isn’t, is sorrow.

And it have Trinidadian who does sing praises to Trump like them Italian who did praise Mussolini for making the trains run on time. You go put a madman in charge of the asylum? You go give a congenital jack – with no conscience – the most power any one man could have in the world? You go laugh kiff-kyaff at “leftists” when he snatch people baby?

And Y’Boy wonder, again, about how quick it is all over.

Forever.

Argentina or England could win the World Cup, long life and cute grandchildren could come, Y’Boy could win prizes or Lottos.

Y’Boy could seize the day by the second and squeeze everything out of every one (and everyone).

And it would still amount to nothing.

But Y’Boy have something he wouldn’t trade for anything, even if it come to firetrucking nothing, in truth: Y’Boy know that the only chance he have of getting something from this nothing is by living this way, with both eyes open, seeing the end clearly and knowing that, when that last moment reach, he could look back over all the millions of moments that went before, and think, “Yeah, that was the way to go.”

BC Pires is up in the dumps. Read a longer version of this column and more of his writing at www.BCPires.com