Only Memories Are Alive
The blood no longer renewed, filtered, pumped through old veins, but still inside the closed system, coagulated. Soon maggots formed, disintegrating the skin and all protective layers of the long dead body. The soul had left the scene, and now the odor of the decomposing body attached itself to every molecule of air that had the misfortune of blowing by it. If only it could be discovered. By whom? Hikers in an expedition to the top of the hill? A lone boy scout, lost, his parents begging the Sheriff to spend the money to send a helicopter? There weren’t too many passersby, and one could argue that unwitnessed putrefaction simply amounted to a natural phenomenon. What if it weren’t buried, or burned? This body could rest in peace until it completely disintegrated into its surroundings, no longer a scene for the senses, perhaps remaining as a memory in someone’s lost mind, an unresolved case in the disappeared persons file. No murderer would be pursued, no grizzly bear moved to another location, until Habeas Corpus, and the maggots now took care of the evidence.
When asked if he had met anyone interesting recently, meaning if he was dating, John answered “no” but as it often happened to him, he remembered a guy he had seen at a social. It was one of those parties from which he always left without meeting anyone. At that party, nothing changed in the two, maybe three, hours during which he slowly walked around the mansion where it was held, looking at the rooms and the objects decorating them. There were guys talking loud in small groups, plastic cups in hand, perhaps a bit of food in a white plastic plate preventing them from gesturing. John tried once or twice to move near a group, to hear what they talked about and to make his presence felt so that the guy who had felt it would step aside and open the circle. It required extra sensorial perception to be the chosen one to let John into a group, so it rarely worked.
There was this guy, however, the one he remembered, also a loner apparently. Or so John had concluded, observing how the young man hugged the buffet table and stared at each plate as if discussing each one with an invisible friend. John had decided to approach him, for what better excuse could he invent than to seek a little hors d’oeuvre to break the ice and start a conversation. Another guy must have had the same idea at the same time, literally running to the table and practically barging in, reaching for the baby carrots with an arm too short, requiring an “excuse me” and shoulder contact. The intruder started a conversation, almost a monologue in John’s view, and dragged the man away to another room.
How could he even think that he, little John, could meet that beautiful man, now only the memory of a missed encounter? The man could be dead, for what John knew, and nobody would care. Such was the destiny of men like him, and he imagined that man to fit the same mold. At any minute of the day, therapists suggested men like them should go out and socialize, take risks, for what did they really fear? Rejection? Wasn’t it their current state of mind? They argued that if one encounter in a million led to a wonderful, lasting relationship, the risk was worth it.
In John’s view, he simply made it easier for others to win that lottery. By withdrawing from a certain loss, he made the odds better for those other guys. Yet, at the moment he was asked if he had any new dates in mind, the guy at the buffet came to mind. And if he came to mind, didn’t he exist? John imagined how their encounter could have gone, maybe now they would be thinking about moving together, maybe they would both be looking forward to a life of travel and leisure… Maybe their encounter, however brief it had been, would have changed something in their lives. Who knows, maybe that guy had been hit by a car crossing Market Street, and that wouldn’t have happened if he and John had spent five minutes together that night, shaking up all future events like dices thrown up in the air.
So it was, in John’s mind, but he stopped short of thinking he could have changed anyone’s life. These guys were a lot happier without him. They were alive and well.
