by L.J Camacho
“What is that mechanism?” Jonas asked.
Surprised by his question, she sat up in her chair. It was his twentieth visit since it happened. Every week Jonas would plop onto the plush blue couch and not say much more than pleasantries. Sometimes he’d talk about weather—sometimes, movies.
“How do people just pretend they’re not going to die? It can just happen. We don’t know when.” “Is that why you rarely leave your house?” She asked. “No. I don’t leave my house because there’s too much to do. I have no control. What is it that makes people so comfortable with not knowing? Why do—”
“I don’t know what the mechanism is,” she interrupted. “The brain does it automatically. Normal people don’t walk around thinking about their mortality all the time. Sorry, not normal. There’s no normal. I meant that clinically.”
“Life’s like playing darts,” Jonas said. “Imagine a dart board. When you’re throwing a dart, you gotta focus on the bulls-eye or whichever ring you’re trying to hit. Instead of points there’s the job ring, the love ring, and so on. That’s how people live their lives, dart by dart. Sometimes they miss; sometimes they get lucky. I can’t focus on one ring. No matter how hard I try, I see the whole board. It makes playing impossible. It’s overwhelming.”
“So is death when you don’t throw any darts?”
“No,” he said. “Death is when you run out of them.”
2 comments:
The rings - what a neat concept. I'm focused on the writing ring right now, but it's hard to tune out the others.
I like the concept a lot. Got lost a bit in who was speaking when. Are they both women? Great thoughts on the dart board and what happens when you play or run out of darts.
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