Twice Born

—an excerpt—

John was sixteen years old the first time he went to a concert. They’d driven in to Toronto in the evening, and he’d felt like the luckiest person alive.

The line up for tickets was madness. It went out the door, along the side of the building, crossed the street, and then disappeared around the corner. Police in yellow vests walked back and forth, hollering orders and trying not to see anything.

“These guys sure are popular,” Becky said.

“I don’t think it’s that,” said a man who’d overheard.

John noticed that many people seemed to be looking upward.

“Apparently, there’s a jumper. On a ledge. And they’ve redirected the line around the area they think he’s gonna hit.”

The line shuffled forward. Laughter danced its way through the crowd. Marijuana smoke drifted overhead. Becky kept telling John to keep his eyes down, even though, like magnets, they were dragged relentlessly upwards.

His eyes were down when it happened. But he will still never forget the sound: the thud of a giant pumpkin falling from a great height. And then the gasp of the crowd.

John was unable to enjoy the concert. He was disturbed that everything had been cleaned up by the time they walked back to the car.

“It’s as though nothing happened,” said Becky.

“The city has a clean up crew,” said a man who’d overheard. “Department of Sanitation.”

“They have that?”

“Probably just a guy with a shovel!”

It was then that John realized something that he’d already suspected for quite some time. Life was pretty terrible. And once he saw that, he couldn’t unsee it. Of course, he’d known already that everybody died, but now he thought about it as soon as he got out of bed.

He carried the thought with him all day. Rich or poor, cautious or reckless, in bed while sleeping or in the jaws of a lion, one day, you would have the life squeezed out of you.