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Organ Donor
1.
I gaze through triple-thick windows. I have no thyroid and often worry that I will
freeze to death. I often feel that I am freezing to death. My children find me pathetic.
They visit me and, as they leave, I see their thought balloons: I never want to get that
old. If I get that old, someone please shoot me. I should buy a gun now to have it well in
advance for when I need it.
) didnt raise them to be gun people. Theyre not gun people, so the names that enter
their heads are only names: Glock (sounds deadly but messy), Walther didnt James
Bond have one?), Lugar (harsh, Germanic), Colt (go out like an old cowboy, blow
yourself out of the saddle). Bye, Dad! Have a nice day!
And more thought balloons: What does he do with himself all day? They could ask the
staff, but dont. They find my incontinence pitiable, but its sudden, unsummoned
warmth is like a hint of Spring at the end of a long winter.
2.
But—ha ha!—I can still drive!
When I slide my license out of my wallet to hand the cop, I see the heart at the bottom
right corner, red like Colorado itself.
A river flows red through black canyons—sinister, vampiric. I slept in a vacant school
nearby, my wife and ) huddled like bats hanging from a caverns ceiling.
The heart on my license, that cheerful valentine, represents the brief period after my
death when my organs will fly hither and yon, packed securely, held close by
messengers, to bring joy to desperate families. In this way, I endorse the concept of
community, no matter how much I mutter under my breath about the general
stupidity of humanity.
The cop doesnt tell me that hes got a borrowed kidney. (e gives me a warning and
sends me on my addled way.
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