This Is It

This is it. There is nothing else after this. There is only this. This is our one shot, don't mess it up. You don't get another. No virgins. No heaven. No next life forever more. No, none of that.

I stood upright, with my arm extended in the air like a super hero

As it's over, everything is over, never to come again. Only what is coming, will come. The only thing you have control over is your positioning at this very moment.

So, I stood like a super hero being in the moment.

You can choose what you get. To an extent. And the best way is to be happy. Content. In a random world. Choose life. Choose happiness and everything else will take care of itself.

I stood up right, tall and proud, being in the moment.

“Whatcha doin’?” came Beth’s voice from somewhere behind me.

“I’m being Captain Right Now, can’t you tell?”

“Captain what?”

“Right now. Captain Right now,” I said again.

“Oh well, good job,” said Beth. “Point your fingers towards the sky.”

“Will that help?”

“It won’t hurt,” replied Beth.

I relaxed my stance and turned to look in the direction Beth’s voice was coming from.

“It won’t hurt?” I repeated. “Is that your definitive spiritually voice?”

“Be happy,” says Beth. “Choose happiness. Ignore the world that glorifies misery for its own gain.” 

She is a crazy genius. Too smart not to be insane.

My crazy next-door neighbour who sleeps in a tee pee and howls at the moon. She calls it chanting, but whatever.

She has OCD and Acrophobia. She has a brain like a computer. She works out complicated theory, it is university work. She works when she can.

“Happiness.”

“Choose it, don’t let it escape… from you,” said Beth.

“Choose happiness.”

“It’s very important, to be active with happiness,” said Beth.

“Actively choose happiness.”

“There you go, you are on your way,” said Beth. Then she was gone.

I sat out in the garden in the comfy chair, after that, figuring I’d rejigged my chakras, or whatever it was called. Buster lay at my feet. I smoked a joint. The sun fell across my face, and I dozed off. It was quiet and peaceful, a gently breeze blew.

After that, I lay back on the couch curled up ever so slightly with the big blanket pulled up over me.