I thought I would traipse merrily along until the end, but around me people seem to have an unconscious awareness of my impending doom. It seems I’m beginning to fade away. People neither pity nor fear me. They simply ignore me. If I make a decision, it goes unheeded. My counsel is not sought after. Every now and then I’ll wield my dwindling powers in Lear-like rage, but the fear it used to generate just isn’t there any longer. Where I was once lusted after, I am regarded with bemusement. I have an increasing lack of presence, bumbling through life, fly normally undone, searching for lost articles, heading off in one random direction after another.
Gifts arrive unasked for, burdened with their expectations of enjoyment, and presuppositions of insights into my psyche. They are burdened with a demand of acknowledgement, a show of euphoria. I am once more the child at Christmas wondering how to be adequately thankful for a chemistry set when you could only imagine mixing everything together and pouring it on an anthill hoping to mutate them into giant radioactive bugs intent upon the destruction of the earth, or an aquarium filled with soon-dead fish, their still eager faces pressed against the aquarium glass looking hopefully for their new caregiver, only to bubble scream, “Not him!”
And then again. Not long now, I know. There is a trickle of water. “Dear God…”