The Note I Leave Behind

By the time you read this, I’ll be dead.

Or not, I’m not sure. I may well still be alive.

But I also may die, and I feel like it’ll be easier for all of us if we proceed as though I were definitely going to, with the option to apologize later should I wind up surviving.

Therefore, before I die, I want to apologize to everyone my passing might hurt. Hurting you was never my intent.

I also want to make it perfectly clear, this is not a suicide note. I like my life just fine, everything is going fairly well right now, and overall I’m generally satisfied with my place in the world. Suicide’s the furthest thing from my mind, and I wish I could say I had many good years ahead of me...

However, we don’t get to choose when we go, it’s chosen for us. And when the time comes we’re all helpless in the face of our own mortality. Everyone learns this in their own time, and mine was chosen for me thirty-five years ago.

Thirty-five years ago this coming Sunday.

The day that I was born.

That’s right.

I was born on Saint Patrick’s Day, you see, and as such the whole world celebrates my birthday. Well, not the whole world, in fact a very slim portion of the world, the Irish, Catholics and drunken, rowdy douche-bags who pretend to be either Irish or Catholic to use the holiday as an excuse to drink, but from my perspective, while it’s happening, it seems like the whole world. Everyone I meet congratulates me on the auspicious date of my birth, everyone wants to take me out for a pint, and nobody will take no for an answer.

“It’s one pint,” they say, “it’s not a big deal. What could it hurt?”

And they’re right. One pint isn’t a big deal. And it couldn’t hurt.

But it never winds up being just one.

Because I have more than one friend, you see, and when I’m invited for a quick birthday drink, EVERYBODY joins me. They want to go to a bar anyway, it being Saint Patrick’s Day and all, and my birthday provides even more of an excuse. And once the drinks are flowing every faux-Irish frat-tard in the place will overhear and suddenly strangers are buying me drinks in the same generous spirit I’ve come to know and love from my friends.

Drinks. It’s the reason for the season after all.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: What on earth am I whining about? That sounds awesome! And you’re quite right, it is. Or rather, it was. Because the other thing that happens on my birthday is; I grow older. And perhaps that’s obvious past the point of needing to be said, but look at the implications.

Endless free drinks until such time as even my heroic commitment to birthday drinking can no longer sustain me for one moment longer is a wonderful thing for a man in his early twenties, but that was a decade ago and, as I get older, what once was a tremendous boon to me becomes more and more of an endurance test. A test that, one year, I won’t be able to endure.

I wake up March 18th feeling like I’m going to die, wishing I could die. Body aching, head screaming in pain, still half in the bag from the night before, and acutely aware that my body, my liver but really my whole body, can’t take the sort of punishment I put it through nearly as well as once it could.

On March 18th, every year, like clockwork, I’m forced into an uncomfortable awareness of my own human frailty as my body is pushed a little closer to its ultimate failure by an endless, terrifying procession of free birthday drinks.

Could I turn these drinks down? In theory I could, but I sure don’t. Not to play to stereotypes, but I’m an actor, a comedian, a waiter and a novelist, and as such I’m incapable of turning down a free drink under any circumstance. So they will be offered, I will accept them, and my already badly broken body will strain further.

Perhaps that final collapse won’t come this year, but some year it will.

And it’ll definitely come on my birthday.

If I see you sometime after Sunday, then I’ve survived. Perhaps by the skin of my teeth, perhaps in a state requiring a week-long hangover to recover, but I’ve survived and that’s what counts, and I’ll be glad of it.

But if I don’t, I’m leaving this note on my blog, to say goodbye, and to let you know: In spite of my sense of impending dread at how I’ll spend my birthday yet again, I regret nothing.

I’ve had some wild parties.

Wild, wild parties.

This year’s will be no different…

Weekly Prompt Story: Idiot

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=23516

Waxing Nostalgic

By Christopher Munroe

I miss all-ages punk shows.

Sixteen years old, in a WWI-era trench-coat, cargo-pants and a t-shirt with “Idiot” emblazoned across the front, out for an evening of local punk bands in an alcohol, and therefore ID, free atmosphere.

The shirt was bought at a Wonder Stuff show, and it was kind of a trademark of mine. I wore it to every gig.

If I ever see another, I’ll likely buy it.

I’m sure there are still all-ages punk shows out there.

I could probably find one, if I bothered to look.

I could probably go.

It wouldn’t be the same…

The Shadow

It was always there, I could always see it out of the corner of my eye, but I could never quite focus on it.

A dark flicker, a shadow across my peripheral, almost man-shaped, which I could always almost see but which, whenever I turned to focus on it, would always vanish.

I could never quite make it out, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it either, wondering what it was, who it was, and what it might want with me.

It was never far from my mind.

I feared it might one day drive me mad.

Now I’m much calmer, here in the dark. Do I miss art, or a sunrise, or the smile of a child? If I have to be honest I’ll admit that I do, on occasion, but that’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind I’ve achieved. After all, I knew that one more flicker in my vision and I’d be driven to mad, desperate action that I might some day live to regret, and so I had to head the problem off before it got to that point.

And, while the solution I’ve found might strike some as extreme, I regret nothing of what I’ve done. It seems, to my mind, only right and proper.

Mine eye offended me, after all.

And so I plucked it out.

Weekly Prompt Story: Storm

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=23486

Stormy Weather

By Christopher Munroe

“There’s a storm a’brewin!” Grandpa always used to say.

But, like, always.

He’d say it every single day, regardless of the weather. He went out of his way to wrap every conversation around to the subject of storms, brewings, or the like, just so he could say it.

Grandpa was a little off toward the end, I have to admit.

To make matters worse, whenever there actually WAS a storm, he would claimed that he knew it, that he’d tried to warn us, if we’d only listened to him.

And, technically, it was true, so none of us could disagree…

A Parable: At the Pub

Once upon a time there was a man, sitting at home, who was struck with an idea.

A brilliant idea.

“I…” he thought to himself, “…shall go to my local karaoke bar. And, upon my arrival, I shall sing Aqua. Not merely “Barbie Girl” but every single song I can think of by Aqua. I shall enlist the host to sing the girl’s part, and sing the boy’s part myself. And, whilst singing, I shall impersonate Cookie Monster.”

“Yes,” he thought, “there is nothing wrong, evil or insane about this plan.”

He, and this is where his story differs so widely from that of those of us who had brilliant ideas and let them fly free from our minds like butterflies, un-tethered, then proceeded to invite his idiot friends to his local karaoke bar, following through on the plan he’d devised.

Yes, he invited people.

He went to the bar.

He sang Aqua.

He impersonated Cookie Monster.

It was remarkable.

I am not this man. I was, however, at the bar when he sang, and allow me to tell you this one thing: It was brilliant.

Inspired.

I will never get tired of the hits (hits?) of Aqua being sung by a bored karaoke host and Cookie Monster. Nor, should you ever experience it, would you.

So, yes, this is a true story, and further it’s one with a moral.

The moral: Simply this…

…write down ideas as you have them, and then follow through.

You have no idea which random stranger you might thrill…

Weekly Prompt Story: Vacation

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=23438

All I Ever Wanted

By Christopher Munroe

I haven’t had a vacation in four years.

I mean, I’ve been unemployed, and that’s technically time off, but it hardly counts, does it?

For a vacation, you need to be able to relax.

Similarly, I’ve taken a number of three day weekends, for weddings, comic expos and the like, but is three days really a vacation?

I would put it to you that it is not.

A vacation is a week, minimum, off. In which you vacate. This is the reason it’s called that, after all.

In that light:

Vegas.

Woo.

Now I just need to figure out when…

Taking My Bows

The show had gone, if I may be so bold as to pat myself on the back, spectacularly. I, particularly, had been incredible.

I don’t mean by this to come off as egotistical, I’ve had a number of performances over the course of the run in which I had not been incredible. That night, however, was not one such performance. I was spot on, every line, every gesture emotionally connecting with the very core of the character, embodying him heart and soul as I poured myself into my craft, infusing words on a page with life and vigor.

I love nights like that. Nothing energizes me more.

We finished the show and, as we took our bows, four hundred people called out to us, taking to their feet to shower us with enthusiastic, if incoherent, cries of praise. The applause was thunderous, it was inspiring.

But I couldn’t let it distract me.

My eyes scanned the crowd, seeking any among them who’s applause might be ingenuine, anyone who might not have been honestly moved by my riveting performance, who might simply be going along with the people who surrounded him. And, as I always do, I found a handful among the audience insufficiently moved by my work, who applauded but, no matter how gifted I was, did not weep.

Unacceptable.

Inhuman.

We finished our bows, and as the curtains closed I tracked down the stage manager, to tell him what I’d seen.

I reported everyone who’s applause had been insufficient, gave seat numbers and brief descriptions, and only when I had finished did I retire to my dressing room, to wash off my stage makeup and change back into my street clothes.

Some of the other cast members planned on hitting a pub to celebrate another successful performance, and for a moment I considered it, but I was tired and, with six shows a week, I knew there’d be plenty of other opportunities to join them at a pub. Every town has a pub, and they all look more or less the same once you’re a month into the schedule. What difference does missing one night make?

So I changed back into my street clothes and, avoiding the crowds waiting in front of the theater, made my exit out the back. It isn’t that I don’t love my fans, it’s just that after a performance that good I’m drained. I have nothing left to give, and the autograph hounds don’t always respect that.

Better to sneak out where nobody thinks to look.

And as I exited the theater into the ally behind the building, I noted the dumpster, a ways away, stuffed to overflowing with the dismembered bodies of the people I’d pointed out to the stage manager a short time before. One arm, hanging over the side, gave the slightest twitch as I passed by, exposed wiring sparking as the fingers reached toward me, then fell dead and limp again, smacking the side of the bin with a dull thud.

When I first took this gig I was surprised to learn how many replicants there were out there, going about normal lives with no idea what they really were. After a few months, however, I’d become cynical. I played my roll, pointed them out to the stage manager and let him take care of them. All I wanted was to do my job, go back to my motel room and get a few hours sleep before I had to be back on the road in the morning, to the next town, for the next performance.

It’s not the most glamorous life in the world, but I’m doing what I love, I bring entertainment to the masses and I help catch a few stray replicants. Overall, it’s a pretty good gig.

I mean, the travel’s a bitch, but it’d be petulant of me to complain about that one detail. After all, I knew what was required of me when I took the job, and I wouldn’t swap the job for anything in the world.

I like the life I lead, and the travel is part of that, so I accept it.

Such is the lot, after all, of a Turing actor.