Walden

She looked at me and asked, “Have you ever died before?”

I looked back and nodded no, knowing full well that I was a liar. I had died many times before, it just didn’t matter.

She smiled.

But then I began to think a little too much, I started to wish I had never read Walden, that I had never lived in Massachusetts and that life hadn’t left my body before, but when it came down to it, nothing could be changed and this was going to be the third time I had died.

She smiled.

I collapsed back into my mind ignoring whatever the hell it was that she was saying. I knew I had died. They had come for me and I had left my body. I had floated, looked down on my body and was then given the option to return. I chose to return, but right now I can’t remember why.

She spoke something about me being honest.

I replied that I was born honest and she had nothing to worry about, at least about anything she could prove.

Every time I died it happened that a little bit of my honesty went with it. I mean, how can you tell someone you have died without them getting that, “You’re fucking crazy” look in their eyes and deeply referring to Walden on more than one occasion in a single fucking paragraph. What is it?

She was still talking and I was drunk so I didn’t care. The conversation had lost me at the first question because as much as I cared there was twice as much of me that didn’t. My thoughts continued to wander and I let them, cause I didn’t.

She paused.

I could tell she wanted me to reply but truth was I had no idea what she was talking about at this point. I said, “Yes.”

She stood up and started to yell.

I just looked at her and stopped listening.

She finished and walked away.

I died.

And then I thought about how great it must have been on Walden…