Sometimes when I dream, I find myself wondering if I’ve already passed over to the afterlife. In the dream, I’m wandering through some strange moment—along some landscape formed out of the real and surreal—and I find I can stop the dream momentarily. I can stop the procession of scenes and think to myself, ‘Is this it? Has it happened already? Am I dead?’ Because at some point, my body will slide away and my last memories will not be memories at all, just the first tentative steps into the never-never. Electrical current in my brain petering out, showing me some vision or representation. An image that happened or never happened, with barely a moment to comprehend.
I just pray that when I go, I’m young and happy in my dream.
I pray for fantasies to usher me away.
When I go, I aspire to be with people I find agreeable. I hope I’m mid-sentence or mid-thought when I realise—like an absolution of reality—that I’m finished. That it’s all over.
Let me float away, happy and free, knowing my descendants will bear the load going forward. I built them a paradise and now they need to learn how to live in it.