THE ROADWAY

Staggering along a roadway, he knew that his life was ended, the wheel had turned, the last grain of sand had dropped from the hourglass, yet the roadway was still there, still straight, still near and distant, and he still stumbled along. He glanced either side of him. Sometimes there would be tightly packed houses, little packages of the domestic: bright curtains, challenging doors, flowers. Other times there would be wide open moorland, undulating forever; and at others: deep impenetrable forest, or sunlit dappled glades. Sometimes there were people who smiled, at others there was...nothing. It was as if the roadway, himself, or both, were in constant flux, neither or either being able to make up their minds what scenario was best, what was most fitting, what would suit the drama, or lack of drama that was his death. He knew that he had died, or at least nearly so. Nothing could be this numb, this distracted, this obscurely tangential without there being death and dying involved somehow, somewhere. It wasn't worth thinking about...it just was. What happens to us when we die? He looked once more around him at the shifting panoramas, the glanced parameters. Some he recognised, some he thought he did, some he had no recollection of. Was this his life, his dreams, his heaven, or his purgatory? Maybe they were all rolled into one. Maybe he was meant to see all of this and...reflect? Maybe it was a passing phase and then he would be elsewhere, distant, abstracted? Maybe, maybe, maybe. The moon shone in his face, and then it was the sun. Dark clouds built up in front of him...and then they were gone - clear skies everywhere. Just like life he thought. Shit, then clear skies, then more shit. And as if on queue, the skies turned black and bitter, angry rain lashed cruelly down on him, soaking him instantly from outside to inside. He shivered, but snorted. Yep, just like life.