I'm not inspired today.
I don't feel like being witty.
I don't even feel like griping about work. Or nattering about puttering about in my garden.
Maybe I should worry? Do I have a temperature? What's wrong with me?
It's the bad omens, maybe.
I.e., those things that writers put in movies or novels to increase the sense of foreboding and doom, so the characters don't actually have to say, hey... I have this inexplicable sense of foreboding and doom.
You know, those things that in life are just part of the scenery... until that little part of your brain, that little wrinkly bit which likes to make connections between things, starts threading together a narrative.*
Divining an omen is a sort of reversal of the If a tree falls in the forest situation: If something unusual happens, and I am there to see it, should I consider myself warned?
If an omen happens in my vicinity, and I don't notice it, does it still count?
~ ~ ~
On the weekend, I stood in an empty metro station at night and watched an out~of~service train go whizzing by. It was very eerie, and it totally creeped me out to see something normally so full of people so visibly devoid of human presence.
Yesterday, I saw in the gutter a crumpled & flattened cigarette package emblazoned with the brand name "Time". Am now half~expecting to see crumpled & flattened cigarette packages emblazoned with brand names "Life", "People" and "Martha Stuart Living".
And first thing this morning, the crow that has been loitering lately in our parking lot, that cheeky~as~you~please little bugger, that West~Nile~infected~mosquito~eating crow walked up to our front doors and looked at me as if he expected to be let in like any other biped.
The crow didn't have an electronic swipe key, so of course we didn't let him in.
Harbingers of Life, one; Omens of Death, zilch.
~ ~ ~
Death always sends a messenger.
If you haven't been forewarned of your immminent death, it's harder to be reconciled to your demise after the fact ~~ and those in denial about being dead are notoriously difficult souls to wrangle.
Not to mention the difficulty involved in keeping the Dead With Unfinished Business on their side of The Veil.
So it's just easier on everyone involved if notice is given. Metaphorical notice, you understand.
Because you can't spend all your life waiting for Death with your bags packed.
~ ~ ~
It's not even the inevitibility of death that worries me; it's the timing.
I'm sure my demise will come at the most irritatingly inopportune moment. The house will be a mess, I'll be behind in my paperwork, no~one will be able to cat~sit, even a pauper's funeral will be beyond my means and my skin will have some horrible eruption of acne that no mortician will be able to conceal.
So, really, Death could strike at any time.
~ ~ ~
And I'm having another one of those days at the office, too.
One of those days where I think, it could be worse. We could be working for the beef industry. In Toronto. Near a stagnant ditch.
One of those days.
~ ~ ~
Hey.
Don't let me bum you out.
Here, go visit The Institute of Official Cheer. Unpack your bags, stay a while.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* The James Burke gyrus, clearly marked on any reputable and up~to~date map of the brain.