Pondering at Five

Sixteen billion years ago a shard of energy said yes and expanded into infinity, creating the universe. Fourteen hundred years ago a paranoid Roman king scarcely conscious converted to Christianity and brought an entire empire with him to the endless shut-eye. Twenty years ago a gay flight attendant brought AIDS to North America because he didn’t practice safe sex. And today at 3:46 PM I’m sitting on one of the cold foldout metal chairs arranged as a circle in the Matthew Room of the Frank Wellen Center for the Mentally Unsound and it is my turn to talk.
“Hi, I’d like to-“
“Please Mr. Darson, do not interrupt Mr. Fuller when it is his turn to talk.”
Maybe Not.
“Sorry Dave.”
Dave drones on and on about how his girlfriend dumped him and how he holed himself in his room for weeks and his Vitamin C addiction (“I never get sick anymore and it depresses me”).
“Ok, Mr. Darson, it is your turn--”
“Can I trade you seats, Mr. Darson?”
“David, what did I just tell Mr. Darson?”
“Sorry.”
“Ok, Mr. Darson, you were saying?
“Hi, I just wanted to announce that I’ve learned from Death himself that I’m going to die tonight. Dave, you’ve wanted to sit in my chair for about six years now, so tomorrow it’s yours.”
Tonight I will die. Tomorrow my daughter will find out and cry. In sixty years she’ll tell her granddaughter how much she loves her. Waiting in infinity is the end of the beginning of the end of the universe. And now is the only time you’ll ever have to offer your seat to someone else.