And when I do die, will I be able to think as I disappear? Will I lie there, clinically dead, still capable of cognition? Paralyzed but powerless to halt the slide into darkness? That moment will be the longest moment of my life. Hopefully I will be unaware of my own death. Go to bed, fall asleep and somewhere in the wee hours of the a.m. simply cease to exist. Cease being. That would be better, right? Or not. Wouldn’t I want to know beforehand? But there is no way to know, unless you’re on death row.

It is certain beyond any certainty that I will one day cease. And all the information in my brain will cease. Memory will cease. Knowledge will cease. Skill will cease. Personality will cease. This is what I think about as I lie in bed. Terrible jaws of fear grip me for hours. Then, the pills gain traction and I slip away and I’m asleep.

December 25, 2005

There’s a chance I will die during surgery. This would be such a gift for Sarah. She likes drama because she thinks it makes her a better writer. She’s still young, she doesn’t understand that what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger, it wears you out and weakens what little integrity you have. She seeks authenticity and gravitas. Why else would a woman in her late twenties bother with an old fucker like me? Of course if I passed away she’d mourn. But in the end, it would be a big gift, my death. She’d write a piece for The New Yorker and there’s a very good chance it would get published.

I had planned to spend Christmas alone but Sarah showed up and insisted on giving me a present. (I’d been too busy to get her anything. Which only deepens her affection for me. She feels closer to me when I exhibit my faults, especially when I don’t acknowledge them as such.) She brought me a scarf and a book about Rembrandt by Simon Schama. I didn’t spoil the gift by telling Sarah that I’d read it. We ate a light meal, I drank one glass of Napa cabernet sauvignon. We made a fire and hunkered down on the couch.

I was trepidatious about the sex act. Would it kill me? I forgot to ask the doctor, couldn’t call him on Christmas Day. Sarah was of the opinion that we could “snuggle.” She was anxious about my health, but she was also anxious for my attention, as usual. She beamed me with her big brown eyes. Despite my own (more pertinent) anxiety, a wonderful erection came easily. Alive again!

Sarah administered ridiculously slow fellatio which raised my blood pressure so high that when I did cum, I exploded into ecstasy, my limbs rigid, my chest convulsing for lack of air. As I was drowning in a sea of pent-up endorphins and spasming nerve endings, my pulse blipped erratically and I whirled into a chasm of fear. My enormously swollen heart muscle was holding the reins of my very life. I was cumming and dying synchronically! My mouth and tongue went dry, my breath shallowed, charging the finale with even more weirdly terrific energy. Sarah swallowed and I thought, “That may be the last one you get, kid.”