The Man Who Forgot to Die ~ Short Story

A warm blanket covers me, breathing in cold morning air in a quiet room. “Another day”, I say to myself and then get out of bed and put on blue slippers.

First thing—pee. Second thing—wash face, and next brush teeth. Staring in the mirror is such an unusual thing for me each morning. Gazing at the reflection and trying to figure out who is looking back. Who does this reflection belong to?

“The reflection belongs to me”, I say out loud; “You are the man who forgot to die.” That is what the neighborhood kids have dubbed me; The Man Who Forgot To Die.

That’s the question in my head, that same repetitive question that will not go away. It will always wake me at exactly 7am. I never need the aid of an alarm clock. I have always gotten up at exactly 7am since the incident. What is up with that? Who gets up with a haunting repetitive question in their mind every day? Me, I acclaim, the man who forgot to die.

Monday 7am, the third of December I awake to the question of Existence. Not the question of ‘do I exist’ but the why and how of the longevity of my existence.

This is what I think about at 7am under a warm blanket, breathing in cold morning air. My long existence…

My existence has been mundane at best, not at all a great reality, nor a horrible one either. In all truth it has been a boring life, mostly.

I am the man who forgot to die…in hindsight it is a peculiar thing to put out of your mind, but forget I did. In truth, I did not forget to die. It was more like I didn’t remember that I was supposed to die.

It seems only natural to think about your death. Far as I know there is no cure for that condition called birth. If you are born you will die. Harsh, nonetheless true. Death has no cure.

This is the oddity of all the oddities…if you are born you will die. In between the light of birth and the darkness of death you get to think about it. On some random day for a haphazard reason you will die and there is nothing you can do to stop it. If that wasn’t bad enough you get no control over the how, why or what of your looming death. There is suicide for the control freaks, but that is a bad choice for those who have been baptized.

The compelling subject of death has missed my thoughts; I question my existence and speculate about what purpose it has. Bloody hell there is so much rubbish in my head. Truly maddening, repetitive and worthless…I need coffee, lots of it.

I turn off the running water, flush the toilet and go down to the kitchen.

Seven twenty two AM. Black coffee and toast, this is my same breakfast…mundane…isn’t it? I do use different jellies to break up the humdrum of it all.

On my kitchen table I keep a large yellow legal writing pad. In the morning with coffee and toast I like to write about myself, at least what I understand regarding my way of life. I hope that keeping lists, notes and casual whatnots about my life will help. It is my intention that these words may be of use to somebody some day. I feel bad for the poor bastard who needs these words.

Today’s page is titled ~

The Man Who Forgot to Die
~ I did not cheat death but forgot, so I remembered later, much later
~ No supernatural gifts or powers that I know of
~ No special diet or exercise program, in truth I am a slovenly lad
~ No fountain of youth or magical elixirs
~ Not a vampire
~ Not cursed, that I know of
~ Not blessed, that I know of
~ I do not pray or meditate or talk with the dead
~ Never studied on how to sustain long life
~ I did buy a juice machine off of a late night infomercial, maybe that had something to do with it? Probably not. I only used the juicer twice. Beet and celery juice is dreadful…
~ Spent a long time in a coma or hibernation or deep suspended sleep. The doctors never did agree on what to call it


*****
Twelve years ago I walked out of Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with three Kurt Vonnegut novels, two Beatles CD’s and the complete Pittsburgh Steelers decade of champions history of the 1970's in my head and not much else.

I knew how to tie my shoes and how to find my way home. I knew where I kept the coffee and how to find the post office. I even remembered my way through the local woods and short cuts to get across town.

What I couldn’t remember was:

~ My name
~ Age
~ If I had parents
~ If I had siblings
~ If I went to school or held a job
~ Was I liked or was I a self-absorbed wanker
~ Did I know love, did I break hearts or have my heart broken
~ Indian, Thai or Italian?
~ Why on earth my closet was filled up with tie-dye t-shirts, black skinny ties and a large woolly sweater with leather patches covering the elbows?
~ What was disco?

Nobody was quite sure how long my stay in Saint Clair Memorial Hospital was or even how I got there.

When I arrived at Saint Clair’s their record-keeping system consisted of hand-written notes on 3x5 white index cards that a nurse would type up in some meaningful order for the next physician to use.

When I left, patient information was readily available on something they called smart-phones that had no resemblance to a phone at all, more like a hand-held calculator with no numbers. A flat screen that gave you information when you touched it, as far as I could tell it responded to your thoughts and finger’s needs.

A doctor would walk into my room pull out this tiny black plastic gadget, wave his fingers over it and tell me that my vitals are looking good. Next the black-plastic-calculator-looking gadget would ring or chirp or play music and that was the warning sign that the doctor would say good-bye to me and walk out of the room.

With the switch from the pen to wireless technology my medical history was lost, the majority of it anyway. Dating my stay in the hospital it would appear that I have been here at least 23 years, best guess.

For the past seven years I had the same nurse; Dolores.

Dolores filled me in on much of what happened. She was the one who would read me the Vonnegut novels and play the Beatles music for me. Dolores felt sorry for me that nobody ever came to visit. Those novels and music were her son’s favorites during the wars that he was in.

Wars? What did I miss?

Dolores told me about how her son gave his life for us in a war and how the world has fallen into a world of terror, sac-religion and worst of all you can watch it all on the tellie.

So, Dolores would sit with me and mourn her son. Trying to comfort me with some of his favorite things even though I was sleeping. Dolores the Kind Nurse.

One day I awoke in Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with Dolores the Kind Nurse sitting next to me.

I was refreshed, strong and ready to go. I could bend over and touch my toes, I could do push-ups, was not sore or achy. My muscles should have been atrophied and deteriorating, but they were not. I had energy.

The explanation that the doctors had for me was that I was in a different state of consciousness during my long stay at the hospital. I was neither awake nor sleeping or dreaming. I was in an “alternate state of consciousness” was all they could figure.

They diagnosed it this way because apparently my heartbeat and brainwave activity continuously stayed the same. Neither slowing down nor speeding up. I am told that when you’re in a coma or asleep you will still have changes in brainwave activity and heart rate. I did not.

The comparison they gave me was that my brainwave activity and heart rate could be qualified as a marathon runner, running at peak condition that never altered pace or thoughts, for 23 years non stop.

To the doctors I was neither man nor angel or demon. I was unexplainable. This alternate state of consciousness left me ageless.

I aged but less; I grew strong during my absence.

I had some gray hairs on my chin and flecks of gray in my hair but I was muscular with little to no body fat. I had no wrinkles or age spots on my skin. I stood tall, well built with good posture and bone structure.

The experience should have left me decaying; in reverse it made me trans-human.

Three days after my awakening, with clarification from Kind Nurse Dolores, a barrage of questioning and tests from the medical staff, I walked out of Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with 3 Vonnegut novels, 2 Beatles CD’s and a hug from Kind Nurse Dolores.

Shortly after leaving the hospital I found out that I had become some sort of media-medical-celebrity. Everybody recognized me from the tellie, newspapers and Internet hoopla…but no one remembered me.

What type of blimey bastard must of I been? Twenty-three plus years in a hospital with no visitors and now all this media-medical-hype and still no one remembered me. I left this world and went to sleep and nobody missed me…

Over the next few years people began to think of me as this strange trans-human-being. People would walk up to me and ask all sorts of questions about my alternate state of consciousness. I favored calling it my “long-afternoon-nap”, but nobody seemed to care what I preferred.

Questions regarding the afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory; they would want me to lay hands on them or they wanted to touch my hair for good luck. They would ask for my blessing over them or to heal their sick.

I had no answers for them. No gifts of wisdom to give them.

“Surely that occurrence must have had existential meaning to it”, they would say, or “What did you see” or “What did you learn”, they would ask of me.

Sorry to report—no visions, no knowledge, no memory…

It was disappointing to see their faces when I told them the only truth that I knew, which was “Sorry, I can not help you.”

After a while of not being able to stand all the disillusionment that I was causing in the masses, I decided to start giving one blank statement to all the hundreds of questions; Be Nice.

Be Nice ~ that was it, that was all I could come up with. Not much of a curbside prophesy but I figured with a statement like that I could do no harm.

Just like that I became “The Man Who Forgot To Die”, walking the streets telling people to “Be Nice” to one another. It looks as if nobody was listening at any rate. No wonder why I took my-long-afternoon-nap.

*****


Passing a church bake sale I could smell fresh apple pies. I remembered that I liked apple pie but I could not remember if I ever held a job or went on a date. Go figure.

I walked down into the church basement and heard my name spoken out load for the very first time and at that moment it all came back to me, my existence, my purpose, and my name.

I nun falls to her knees in front of me and said,

“Dear God”.

“Yes”, I answer.

Happy Thanksgiving

~ See you all next Monday, have a great holiday...

Peace ~ John

Pittsburgh Wedding Photographer

Pittsburgh PA, Light Up Night 11/20/09

Purposeful Blogging Workshop

Every photographer that I have ever met struggles with the same issues:

I am too busy running my business; I have no time for creative new work. How do I get more time?

Or

It’s too important for me to keep creating so I have no time to run my business. How do I get more time?

These questions will be answered at my Purposeful Blogging workshop.


"Purposeful Blogging is a marketing tool for photographers who want to grow their business by building an audience through the use of new communication models. Blogging for your business is a demonstration of your skill and representation of who you are. This workshop with Photographer will introduce you to techniques that can help you launch your business into the blogosphere.”

This is workshop of must-have information on how to build your audience thru blogging and how to sustain you business.

Date: January 30, 2010
Location: 502 W. North Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Time: 1 – 4pm
Cost: $55. 00
Class: limited to 15 people
Contact Elizabeth Craig at 724.355.9079 or by email at craigphotography@mac.com for more information and to register.

AND DON'T FORGET:

Pittsburgh Light Up Night – Photo Walk
Friday November 20th 7pm
Meet up: West End Overlook
Cost: Free
What to bring: Camera, tripod and warm clothes ~ it will be very cold and crowed on the overlook.

Moment

Current Reading: Financial Lives Of The Poets by Jess Walters
Current Music: Revolver (remaster) By The Beatles
Mood: Breathing
Sounds: Kazoo
Smells: Coffee
Temperature: 57 degrees
Thoughts: Why did it take me so long to discover the novels by Jess Walters?

Photo of the Week

Camera: Nikon D700
Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

Last Week

This is what I remember from last week:

~ My daughter fell in love with the word poopie & mass-eating of cantaloupe
~ My wife bought me slippers that sound like I am walking in high heels when I walk across hardwood floors.
~ I spent too many half hours watching FOX news followed by half hours of MSNBC news. It left me feeling half baked.
~ Planet Green Television is the best network ever. Emeril Green & Renovation Nation are good TV.
~ Read “The Financial Lives of The Poets” by Jess Walter. Walter is my new favorite writer.
~ I discovered what happens when an observant man loses the ability to observe.
~ Bought the re-mastered Beatles album Revolver. Love it. It is the first time you can actually hear an improvement in sound quality. McCartney can play bass.
~ Photographed a painting inside an art gallery. is photographing art, art?
~ Saw Santa Clause, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan and Aladdin all in one place, local mall…
~ Drank a lot of ginger tea
~ Steelers lost to the Bengals, twice, ARRGHH..

AND DON'T FORGET:

Pittsburgh Light Up Night – Photo Walk
Friday November 20th 7pm
Meet up: West End Overlook
Cost: Free
What to bring: Camera, tripod and warm clothes ~ it will be very cold and crowded on the overlook.

Please e-mail me at jecraig@mac.com if you plan on attending, need to get a head count.

Time Off

See you next week...

Workshops now booking...(see here)

New Workshop Dates Announced

David Burke & John Craig
How To Everything (& More): PHOTOGRAPHY

In your gut you want to be a PHOTOGRAPHER. Or maybe you just want to learn how to use that expensive camera you just bought but you’re not sure who to ask. You have a great eye for composition but you just need some guidance, an advisor to help YOU fulfill your dreams. Make the jump from thinking, daydreaming and create great photographs…

Is this you?
-You take great pictures
-Everybody tells you that you take great pictures
-Your friends and family always ask you to bring your camera
-You bought an expensive new DSLR camera
-You have no idea how to use to it, except on AUTO
-The camera’s manual scares the bajesus out of you
-You love photography and want to get better

Who should take this workshop?
-If the list above is YOU
-You love taking photographs
-ISO, F/stop, shutter speed, and aperture are words that means nothing to you
-You have no idea what DSLR means
-If you want to able to tell your camera what to do
-If you want the mysteries of the photo universe revealed to you

What you will learn:
-Understanding exposure
-How to use your camera in manual mode
-How to take a photo “correctly” in camera
-Natural light techniques
-Understanding your lens
-Understanding White Balance
-Flash Techniques


Date: January 23, 2010
Location: 502 W. North Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Time: 10 am-4pm
Cost: $175.00: includes boxed lunch
Class limited to 15 people
Contact Elizabeth Craig at 724.355.9079 or by email at craigphotography@mac.com for more information and to register.


Purposeful Blogging Workshop

Every photographer that I have ever met struggles with the same issues:

I am too busy running my business; I have no time for creative new work. How do I get more time?

Or

It’s too important for me to keep creating so I have no time to run my business. How do I get more time?

These questions will be answered at my Purposeful Blogging workshop.


"Purposeful Blogging is a marketing tool for photographers who want to grow their business by building an audience through the use of new communication models. Blogging for your business is a demonstration of your skill and representation of who you are. This workshop with Photographer will introduce you to techniques that can help you launch your business into the blogosphere.”

This is workshop of must-have information on how to build your audience thru blogging and how to sustain you business.

Date: January 30, 2010
Location: 502 W. North Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Time: 1 – 4pm
Cost: $55. 00
Class: limited to 15 people
Contact Elizabeth Craig at 724.355.9079 or by email at craigphotography@mac.com for more information and to register.

AND DON'T FORGET:

Pittsburgh Light Up Night – Photo Walk
Friday November 20th 7pm
Meet up: West End Overlook
Cost: Free
What to bring: Camera, tripod and warm clothes ~ it will be very cold and crowed on the overlook.

Q&A Session & Meet-n-Greet
Thursday December 10th 7 to 9pm
Meet up: My house
Cost: Free
What to bring: Your questions, camera, good attitude and a friend. Let’s build the community.

E-Book released
January 2010
The Photographer’s Blog
Cost: $10.00 download

Photo Walk - Monday November 9th ~ CANCELED due to illness

~ Please spread the word... Will reschedule.

The Abandoning ~ Short Story

The Abandoning ~ Short Story

Dear…

Mr. & Mrs. House; that’s my parents and they love coffee and not much else. They have 7 kids and I am the 7th. Max, that’s me. Coffee that is their life actually was their life.

Mr. & Mrs. House up at 6:30am, by 6:35 they are sitting at a small kitchen table built for two. Yellow formica table top with four rusted steel legs two chairs that are permanently wrapped in a thick plastic with faded pink flowers imprinted on the cushions.

My Mom makes the coffee like a sacred ritual. She opens the big blue can, takes a deep breath of the grounds and then four large scoops into a stainless steel coffee pot that was given to them as a wedding gift. They sit at that table and wait the 4 minutes and 32 seconds for life to begin, again. After the 1st cup is drank my father pours the 2nd cup for the both of them and then looks at his wife and says, “Don’t say I never do anything for you.” He says this everyday and not much else to her. My Mom just smiles and reads yesterday’s newspaper.

This is what I wake up to; the smell of coffee, and two fat parents in a small kitchen who could care less about me. To be fair, at least they treat me like all their others kids. The siblings seven: the two oldest in jail for drugs, next set got the hell out of here over ten years ago. I don’t see either of them very often but they do send me books and music at Christmas and on my birthday. That leaves the two siblings that I should be close with, my brother & sister. I am not for no particular reason. We do not fight or have different views; we are simply distant from one another. It’s like when you see a cousin every other year at a family event. Sure there is a family resemblance and polite conversation, nonetheless he is a stranger to you. That’s us as siblings; strangers who are polite.

As for me being born as lucky number 7, well that is not clear to me yet. To say that my arrival into this world was a surprise would be an understatement. If the New York Giants did not win the Super Bowl in 1987 there is a good chance that I would not of been born. But here I am at this computer telling you my stories and hoping somebody out there is reading them. They say that you choose your parents before you’re born in the great Hall of Bluff in Heaven. I have no idea what I was thinking up there in the after life or the before life or whatever you want to call it. All I know is that I must have been up for a challenge choosing Mr. & Mrs. House.

Nine months and 12 days after the Giants won the Super Bowl my parents finally got around to giving me a name. There was no debate or thought as to what to name me; they just didn’t get around to it.

On day 12 of life they decided on a name for me. At 6:39am one minute before the coffee would be ready. Mrs. House holds ups her beloved blue can of coffee and looks at Mr. House and says “How about Maxwell?” So, Mr. & Mrs. House named their 7th child after their true love. That must mean something, right?

Searching for life,

~MH

*****

Dear…

It has been 4 years since the abandoning. I live alone on a small plot of live land on a dead planet. As far as I know I am the only one left. When I say dead planet, I mean dead. If you walk off my land the world is gone. No people, no buildings, no trees, no plants, no air, no sky, no water, no memories; only death. It is like one of those photos of the Moon or Mars, a crater of dead rock suspended in space with no purpose. Accept for my small plot of land.

Is this purgatory or paradise, paradise lost or paradise found? I have not discovered that answer yet. Why was I spared from the abandoning? I do not know. I am the last of humankind, all extinct but me enveloped in silence, the last to speak or to use language.

Why publish these letters if nobody is left to read them?

The abandoning left me with this land, one working computer and an internet connection. A single solar panel on the house powers the computer and there must be a satellite left up in space that I can get an internet connect from. This is all just a guess. I have no explanation for this and have stopped trying to find one a long time a go.

The internet is filled up with the wisdom of my ancestors; I will have no descendants to tell my stories to. The Abandoning left me this vessel for communication. It must mean something, and this is why I write these letters.

Searching for life,

~MH

*****

Dear…

Up at 6:30am, I must be a creator of breading, I say to myself out loud. No coffee but black tea and raw almonds provided by the land. This will do. Twelve raw almonds I must eat every morning before I start my day. I have no inkling why it has to be twelve, but twelve it must be. OCD in purgatory or paradise.

Day 1,468 I sit in the kitchen as my parents did. Starting out the same bay window, with the same smoke yellowed curtains with a blue dove pattern. From this window I can see the only other sign of life left on the planet and it’s actually a sign. A real sign; a billboard. A billboard that sits on the very edge of my land and a death planet, separated by advertising.

This billboard is not the typical roadside billboard that you’re used to seeing, it’s enormous. Think of the Las Vegas strip on steroids. This black and white structure stands 50ft high by 100 feet long and it reads…

Ye are all GODS
and it’s about time
you start getting good at it

Searching for life,

~MH

*****
Dear…

Yes, it was maddening. The world is gone. I awoke to nothing. No violence, no war, no rapture, no explanation, nothing. Writing this I am not sure if I am sane or insane. This is no dream. The land and the billboard told me so. Not in a voice or a feeling but their existence gives me reason to believe.

My land is perfect. It is everything I need to sustain my life; hell it has everything I need to grow old and fat. Freshwater stream with fish, an orchard of fruit trees, rows and rows of vegetable gardens, birds in the sky, squirrels and chipmunks on the ground. I live on the perfect farm; a land of perennial bounty with none of the work.

Traveling this land I now know so well I feel guilty if a have to kill any animal for food since now these animals with the land are my community…my people. My only predator is time.

I have to go now. The sun is setting and I’m losing power.

Searching for life,

~MH

*****

Dear…

I play guitar, a 67 Martian acoustic. This instrument holds memories of the life I was living before the abandoning. I played too well not to be a professional musician but not well enough to be noticed in my profession. Now I sit at the edge of my land under the shade of the billboard and play for the audience that I wish was listening.

Reminiscent sounds of clapping in the distance...could it be?

Two walking shadows at the foot of the billboard move towards me. I cannot understand nor believe it. I run towards the billboard.

“Hello Maxwell.” Says the man.

“Why...how...who are?” I ask dumbfounded

“You say that every time we meet Maxwell.” He says with a strange, knowing look on his face. "This is my wife Eve and I am Adam."

Reminder ~ This Monday

Photograph Pittsburgh at Night– Photo Walk
Monday November 9th 7pm
Meet up: West End Overlook
Cost: Free
What to bring: Camera, tripod and warm clothes ~ it will be cold on the overlook.

Moment

Current Reading: Traveling Clothes by Bill Deasy
Current Music: If On A Winter's Night... by Sting
Mood: Death
Sounds: TV
Smells: Nothing
Temperature: Cold
Thoughts: I am not looking to preach but I do want to convert.

Craig Photography Charity Gift Calendars

Craig Photography would like to announce that we are now offering 2 types of gift calendars you can purchase for your friends and family for this upcoming gift-giving season. All proceeds will be donated to the Three Rivers Adoption Council, which is an organization that devotes its efforts to finding permanent homes for children of all ages.

These 12-page, 8.5 x 11 calendars are $30 and will include your choice of either John’s art photos from his Ambient collection or his Pittsburgh at Night series collection. See below for the photos included in each.

So help us raise money for a very special organization! Contact us for more information.

Yesterday's Workshop Notes & Dates

Thank you to all who attended yesterday's workshop. The questions asked were remarkable.

If you would like to download last night's notes you can (HERE)

Upcoming Photo-Walk dates:

Photograph Pittsburgh at Night– Photo Walk
Monday November 9th 7pm
Meet up: West End Overlook
Cost: Free
What to bring: Camera, tripod and warm clothes ~ it will be cold on the overlook.

Pittsburgh Light Up Night – Photo Walk
Friday November 20th 7pm
Meet up: West End Overlook
Cost: Free
What to bring: Camera, tripod and warm clothes ~ it will be very cold and crowed on the overlook.

Q&A Session & Connect-n-Grow
Thursday December 10th 7 to 9pm
Meet up: My house
Cost: Free
What to bring: Your questions, camera, good attitude and a friend. Let’s build the community.

E-Book released
January 2010
The Photographer’s Blog
Cost: $10.00 download

Recommend blog readings:
Craig Photography by Elizabeth
David Burke Shoot N' Learn