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    Death My Own Way
    Death My Own Way
    Death My Own Way
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Death My Own Way

    By Michael S. A. Graziano

    ()

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    About this ebook

  • For fans of Gibran and Cavino
  • The Love Song of Monkey (2008) and The Divine Farce (2009) have created a small but very dedicated following of readers, including online and weekly print reviewers, who are eagerly awaiting this novel.
  • A philosophical take on life and the end of life
  • Like the last two novellas, should appeal to GeekScribe, BookFetish, Spirituality & Health Books, etc.
    • LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLeapfrog Press
    Release dateNov 20, 2012
    ISBN9781935248347
    Death My Own Way

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      Book preview

      Death My Own Way - Michael S. A. Graziano

      DMOW_cover.jpg

      DEATH MY

      OWN WAY

      Also by the author

      Novels

      The Divine Farce

      (Leapfrog Press)

      The Love Song of Monkey

      (Leapfrog Press)

      Non-Fiction

      Consciousness and the Social Brain

      (Oxford University Press, 2013)

      God Soul Mind Brain

      (Leapfrog Press)

      The Intelligent Movement Machine

      (Oxford University Press)

      Michael S. A. Graziano

      DEATH MY OWN WAY

      Image4061.tif

      Leapfrog Press

      Fredonia, New York

      Death My Own Way © 2012 by Michael S. A. Graziano

      All rights reserved under International and

      Pan-American Copyright Conventions

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a data base or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Published in 2012 in the United States by

      Leapfrog Press LLC

      PO Box 505

      Fredonia, NY 14063

      www.leapfrogpress.com

      Printed in the United States of America

      Distributed in the United States by

      Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

      St. Paul, Minnesota 55114

      www.cbsd.com

      First Edition

      E-ISBN: 978-1-935248-34-7

      For D.

      When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

      —Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha, c. 500 BC)

      Life is suffering.

      —Siddhartha Gautama

      Contents

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      21

      22

      The Author

      Links

      1

      My clothes are now satisfactorily hanged at the top of the magnolia tree.

      I’m six feet of hairy emaciation standing in the dirt at the foot of the tree. Curls of drizzle-damp hair straggle on my head, my face, my neck, my chest, grading into the curls on my stomach, my pubic mop, my legs, as if I’m wearing an old suit of mangy black funeral clothes with a hole cut in it to let my genitalia dangle through. My pelvic bones look like a juggling act, a carnivalesque triplet of lumps, one lump on the left balanced by two on the right. The extra lump, the upper right, is cancer.

      I can smell body-sickness steaming in the cold air.

      My feet pick up a layer of freezing mud as I walk away, flap flap, on what feels increasingly like hard rubber flippers instead of skin and flesh. I’m relishing the uniqueness of the sensation—chilled muddy pebbles in the cracks between my almost-numbed toes.

      I find myself smiling benevolently, nodding absolution at the shocked expressions that I pass. I am sorry that so few skeptics are in the park at this time of night to behold my art. Not too many people stay out in a drizzle.

      Maybe I can take up a permanent residence. The Naked Park Walker. A New York installation for months, for years. I won’t need a job. I can ask the hotdog vendors for handouts and they would be happy to oblige me because of my advertisement value. If somebody asks, Hey, Naked Park Weird Pelvis Man, where did you get that delicious looking chilly dog? I can point back up the path and say, Right there, Normal Everyday Man, see that yellow umbrella?

      I reach the end of the footpath. My way is blocked by a parapet, a waist high concrete railing, dark from the rain, grainy and pebbled, stuck with dead moss in patches. When I look over the wall I see a drop of about twenty feet to the street below. People must like to stand here during the day talking sporting events and office politics, drinking coffee as they gaze over the cityscape. An old cardboard cup sits on the wall filled with rainwater and a dead spider.

      While I am leaning forward, the wall’s pitted texture sharp against my elbows, I am aware of two or three people behind me staring at my hairy backside. The feel of their eyes on me is like a thumb massage. They’ve stopped at a distance and I hear them muttering to each other in a tone of confusion more than hostility. I don’t turn around to face them. They don’t bother me. Let them admire the pelt on my back.

      What would happen if I climbed onto the wall and reared up on my hind legs, beating my chest pads, revealed to the world, to the highway below, lit by the cinematic wheeling, rushing headlights of cars and SUVs?

      I am Gorilla! Hear me roar!

      My primal spirit may be strong but my arms are not. I have trouble clambering onto my plinth. The sack of my gut, shriveled up from bad appetite, bangs against the concrete. I brace my palms on the wall and lean forward, kicking behind me, trying to wriggle onto my stomach while a pebble gets stuck in my navel and the people behind me mutter and the realization dawns on me that leaping up and roaring like a gorilla is beyond my capability.

      Something is scratching my shoulder. I think it must be a branch poking me from the nearby tree but it turns out to be the fingernails of a hand. I turn and find a woman standing beside me, one hand plucking white earbuds out of her ears and the other hand on my shoulder yanking me away from the wall.

      "What are you doing? Don’t do that. You shouldn’t do that."

      Her voice is filled with urgency as if she has raccoons fighting each other in her throat.

      I can’t figure out the reason for the woman’s anxiety. The interference seems presumptuous. Nobody owns this wall. It’s public property. I can stand on it naked and roar if I want to.

      Then I realize—she must think I’m trying to kill myself.

      It’s a long way down, I admit, because I can’t think of anything else to say.

      I know, she says. "You can’t do that. It isn’t worth it. You shouldn’t do that. You need help, Mister. You need counseling, is what you need, not jumping off the. . . ."

      She waves her hand, not entirely sure what to call the ledge.

      I doubt the fall would kill me. But the traffic would, once I rolled into the highway.

      She lets go of my shoulder and steps back.

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