Intimations of Mortality

I should feel empowered that I ‘know’ when I am going to die. Prescience is the stuff of witches and warlocks and necromancers.

And they always look confident in illustrations.

I was told that I would be alone,working and 79 when I went , departed this carapace and then found whatever version of Karma awaited me.

Mind you this was presented as an executive summary of my complete astrological chart. I had said to her when she said she had got my readings completed, ‘Give me the highlights.’

She,without any preamble, gave me news of my death. No news of fortunes and misfortunes, travels and travails,strangers and lovers. Just you are going to die on such and such.

The presenter was a work acquaintance , almost friend but not quite. She was a student of astrology. Who knew that there was a recognised degree in this field? A chance ha-ha you should do my chart remark over a working lunch led to her assiduously getting it done by her learned teacher. It was printed and spiral bound and had mathematical notations in it. A lot of esoterica. I haven’t read it yet.

And why would I ?

It seems like if I believe in this then all has been revealed. And knowing any of the future minutiae would only hamper my preparation for the Grand Event.

At first I was taken aback. A micro expression expert may have noticed all of the micro expression emotions twitching on my face minus happiness.

Certainly surprise.

I know that I felt disappointed. I had often looked at my life line on my palm as a reassurance of longevity.My line curved like a bow and released its arrow  almost at the wrist: yippee ki-a-yay m’fucker, I would last longer than Bruce Willis no matter how many terrorists attacked me!

I had studied palmistry casually when I was young. It was great for getting to hold the hands of lovely young women, and by gently tracing the lines , effect a caress and look up to see if the pupils had dilated. It was sneaky and underhanded if you will pardon the ‘pun’.  I didn’t  believe in palmistry and the portents of the future.

At that age I was immortal anyway.

So to my disappointment.

I wasn’t so afraid of dying. Enough study of the Upanishads, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Buddhism, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Existentialists, The Stoics, Darwin, Crick and Watson, Dawkins,  and even Kubler-Ross had inured me to the inevitability of it, the pointlessness of yearning for an after life( it was a binary result either way) and the idea of legacy. The dead don’t enjoy their estates.

I was disappointed because I thought I had more time than was now afforded to me: more spaces to go, more food to eat , more sunsets to savour.  And I had thought I still had enough time to write my great book all in quotes and capitals if only to prove to my ever nagging ego that I had it in me.

It’s not that I didn’t have time in the past .

It’s just that I am a procrastinator. Who is nothing but an optimist who believes there is always time to do that one thing .

So I was disappointed when I heard the news of my impending death. I couldn’t take it easy any more. I had to get busy so that I could be working when the knock came at the door.

So I am writing this and other such musings. After all I don’t want to disappoint the astrologer.