wake-up call

a man at the edge of his rope

sat with a pistol in his mouth one saturday night

going over all the things that had happened in his life

which he felt had led to this particular moment &

this particular pistol in his mouth---

he pondered all those who he thought might suffer because of

what would happen when he pulled the trigger &

he pondered all that might not even flinch because of that

very same reason.

 

in a last desperate move,

he wrote a small ad & posted it on Craigslist---

it was aimed at finding a reason to live &

he even titled it something to that effect.

 

after doing so, he made a pact with himself that if he did not

get a response in an hour which was sufficient,

he would pull the trigger & splatter his head all over the

wall behind him.

 

in a few minutes there was an email in his box  

written by a man who had stage-4 cancer &

he was pissed off by this ad that the man with the pistol had posted---

he cursed out the man & told him that

he should be so fortunate to be alive to ponder his

misery & that

though it was a cliché,

it was only when one was obliged to die

that they wanted to live the most---

 

the man with the pistol unloaded it.