The future is a perfect place for a procrastinator. It’s the place where “later” is. I’m not talking about the future of mankind or anything heavy, just a minute, hour, day or lifetime from now. OK, that was kinda heavy. Recently I stopped thinking about what lay out there and just started being there. Yes, this is another in a series of fifteenkey allegory for real events… Thing is, the “being there” thing started back around my reconnection with the “mayor” of Anthem, AZ, and the experience of all the buzz of life in his world. This life has been more fulfilling since walking through that dream sequence because it illustrated the “mystery of the quotient,” the “solve for X” as experiences with people.

Awakening from suspended animation is somewhat disorienting and scary. What happened while I was in the black pod with the little face window? Stuff. Stuff with people. Get togethers… Dinner and drinks with friends. Trips to far off places… Paris. Sydney. What? The Red Sox won the World Series? Twice? Sure, I read about it in the archives, but who knows what alternate reality I came back to, and that 0-3 comeback against the Yankees had to be some Orwellian historical revisionism, right? I stayed in the pod. What if someone came to hit my defrost button and I was away? Over the years, my caretakers looked through the glass and tapped on it, curious to see if there would be a flinch or any reaction. With regularity they attended to primary needs with gourmet meals and live aural therapy. There’s not much difference between comatose and dead, but the angels in my life weren’t going to let me flat line.

Waking up in Arizona had a surreal blur to it, but later tests indicated that was either a.) nearsightedness, b.) the Absinthe, or c.) my head was treated like Teddy Ballgame’s while cryogenically frozen. Yesterday I watched a young woman scan and bag a few groceries with one hand. Her left hand, whatever was left of it, was shrouded under her red Henley. The outline of it was shrunken with more the look of a birth defect than an injury. A wave of empathy crashed over me, but quickly subsided as she dutifully went about her job. Sure, she knows it’s there, but there’s life to live and she’s not letting a physical handicap impede it. My smile and “thank you” for her had a little more life to it than typically expected from a guy with a just thawed head. Apparently my heart survived the reanimation process just fine.

This post began with the intention of writing about “the future” without cliché. Reading it I’m reminded of an old post where one caretaker asked, “enjoying the acid?” Actually I am. I’m enjoying it right now. I’m enjoying the sound of Kyle doing a “Harry Potter” impression while playing PlayStation, and in stereo the nearby sweet music of mother-daughter conversation. I’m enjoying the sounds of this keyboard and I’m grateful to have it. There is no future. Well, no guarantee of one anyway. Right now. It’s everything, (never thought I’d quote Hagar era VH…) but I still need to finish a presentation for… tomorrow.