Sleep, and Death's Departure

2002-07-17 - 3:48 p.m.

Guess what?

I am supposed to be sleeping.

At work, before I left for home, I had a big cup of coffee. It was meant to sustain me in the gym, but I was tired, and have a meeting tonight, so I forewent the gym and came home and went straight to bed like a good little Magus. I then lay there, clutching my icecube satchel, feeling the fan's ineffective wind blowing in my long, sultry locks, and did not sleep.

I dozed, I napped, I may have thrown out a snore or two for effect, but I did not achieve that great realm known as sleep.

And so, after four or five hours of not sleeping, I rose, got a glass of water, and then attempted to sleep again.

As you can see, I am not sleeping. I am writing in diaryland.

I'm supposed to go to that meeting tonight, and if I do I only have an hour, maybe one and a half, in which to sleep. If I didn't work tonight, I'd be okay, but I do.

On the bright side, Death will be taking a near-permenant holiday. His last gift to us as hosts was to provide Pookie with a still-birth last night. But Pookie saw it as beautiful, because the family knew it would be a still birth. The child, named Isaiah, was 500-something grams and only a couple of inches long. The child has a name and will have a real funeral, and the mother, for whom this is the third miscarriage or childbirth, is apparently healthy. The deaths were not her fault, and so she may have another one with her new husband (*who lost a child before as well).

So, a happy ending.

And two months of quiet, of relative peace, and no death.

Except, of course, that death leaves signs, little calling cards, and a tiny note, written in precise, unerring script, letting you know that Death enjoyed his stay, and will be back when he next comes to town.

Cheers,

The Magus

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