Time after Time

It was three in the morning when I got a call from a friend:

 

"SC, I got mortality on my brain. I can't sleep. I do internet searches, and I can't sleep."

"What do you mean?" 

"I look for old friends, people I've known and I find they are dead...cancer...heart attacks...suicide...I don't know why sometimes. I feel bad. I feel bad. I wish I could go back in time. Say sorry for the things I've done. And say sorry for the things I didn't do. I know we get older. Some day it'll be us."

"Sure. Someday it'll be true," I added wearily.

"You know, once I heard a writer interviewed. He said you honour people like a fighter who's been beat down to the mat. You lift yourself off one knee and fight some more. That's how you honour their  memory, you struggle for life as much as you can."

"Sure, sounds right," I yawned.

"SC, you know what's real. The sound of the trumpet, like a dying man. He plays jazz against time..."

"Sounds wise...but I got to go to bed...work tomorrow." 

 

I hung up and slept under the dead of night, till the alarm clock rang. I lifted myself off one knee and made my bed...and thought of an old friend, my indifference gone...dancing like a dying fighter time after time...