Had he been in my subconscious when I went dormant? I was reluctant to get engaged with him in any way, until he asked me for a cigarette. Now why would he ask me for a cigarette? He knew I'm not much of a smoker. What actually does he want from me? His eyes looked bright and skin radiant, he looked lively more than ever. His pallor look from the last time I'd seen him, he no longer carried. Partly I was glad to see him healthy and partly disturbed.
“You know I don't carry cigarettes, don't you?” I asked him, slightly hesitant, being lured into conversing with him.
I'd never seen him in basketball shorts, but he looked good in it and a plain black t-shirt.
He began to fish for something in his pockets and turned them inside out and said “my pockets are empty.”
“Of course they would be empty.” I wanted to tell him, cause when they had cremated him they'd stripped him naked from anything materialistic. I wanted to tell him that he's dead and has been for months now, but something in me told me that it would hurt his feelings, feelings of the dead? Could they be hurt?
“I haven't had a drink in a couple of months” he said again.
“It's a good thing, you don't need it. Now go home.”
“But I want to spend some time with you.”
“You can't, you've already exhausted your time. Look at your hands, you're not wearing a watch.”
He looked at his hands vacantly. “No time!” He said faintly and faded gradually along with his voice.
How long before it dawns upon him that he no longer belongs to this world,
that he's dead?





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© Su_tshant