Waiting For a Tragedy

though the reality of death enveloping everyone we love (swallowing our worlds up whole like a vacuum doing in those ants that cruise along the surface of the carpet (working, working, working) until that fateful day when the human occupants see fit to destroy civilizations of insects which may ironically, inevitably, outlive themselves if/when the nukes fly, the biochems spray, or the governments of the world decide its time to accidentally leak those wellsprings of smallpox, etc. said to be eradicated & merely history back out into the veins of our decrepit species), looms over us all, it shows its face ever so more vibrantly when the loved one is older, very sick, but determined to outlive the cancer spreading inside them--- with the persistence of Hitchens, they run on the treadmill & though one has to admire the fight, it is quite difficult, as one who cares so deeply, to not see the need for rest to be something which at this point, should be of utmost importance. so the loved ones worry, day & night, night & day, because it feels as if the day is coming closer when the person they love will be gone forever & the plethora of emotion ranges from sadness to anger (an obvious sadness, but an anger that ones hands are tied---that one cannot stop the cancer on their own & that no one has the right to tell/ask anyone how to spend their last days, even if all they do is work)--- so we wait. we wait for the tragedy to come, a rehearsal for our own individual end, but one so much more painful & terrifying--- like staring out the window of a train, seeing an explosion & pure chaos up ahead & the train is slowing down, with the doors locked (doors for which you have no key) & even the air inside the train car is getting thicker, hotter & as sweat begins to bead on the forehead, it truly is getting harder & harder to breathe.