Stuff

Seeing the Dead

The dead are easy to see

once you get the hang of it.

At first you can just barely see them

out of the corner of your eye.

Remember when you thought you saw something

that wasn’t there?

Yep, that was a dead guy.

With practice you can get good at it.

The secret’s in not trying at all.

But take my word for it,

it’s not really worth the effort.

Once you do it,

it sort of becomes an obsession.

You start looking for them everywhere.

For the most part,

they’re exactly where you’d expect them to be:

In the graveyard just sitting on their tombstones,

smoking cigarettes and staring at their watches.

All of them with nothing to say.

It’s like some demented remake of Our Town

that has no point.

But then you start to see them in other places, too,

like walking around in the mall

or waiting for a show at the theatre.

Just this morning

I saw a dead man standing on the side of the road,

smoking a cigarette with his coat across his arm.

He was like one of those hitchhikers

who doesn’t even bother to put his thumb in the air,

because he knows eventually somebody’s going to stop,

and even then he’s not in any hurry.

And that dead guy,

he gave me the look.

That, “Yeah, you,” look.

But there’s no way I’m going to stop.

I won’t even stop for a live guy.

What makes him think I’d stop for him?

Besides, I’m not going that far.

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