First Draft

‘We’re having a meeting later tonight. I think we’ll have enough bodies for the cremation,’ says Wartika with a big smile.

I’m with the Wife (yes, upper caps W) and we’re having breakfast. Wartika works here, and from the way he instructs a few of the other waiters, I suspect he’s middle management. ‘I think we can get 30 bodies. It should be enough.’ Group cremations are how the Balinese send their dearly departed off into the afterlife. It’s not cheap, and some Balinese have been waiting for years to make this final journey.

The Chinese (don’t get all uppity, I’m one) don’t mind cremations. You can go into the ground or into the stove, but with all the offerings that get burnt to make you comfortable in the afterlife, our relationship with fire is well documented. More accurately, our relationship with suffering. Loss mustn’t just be felt, it should be displayed. Draw it out, make it public, and if you can, allow the whole funeral to deepen the hurt.

Just a week before flying to Bali, I was in Korea for the annual company trip (awful food, good company, and perhaps the first I’ve been on where people didn’t immediately want to fuck each other). I was in Group A. Sizeable companies tend to split employees into groups ensuring two things: that someone is left behind to carry on work; and the two groups almost never see each other, throwing a spanner into the esprit de corp machinery.

As I’m not part of upper management, a mid-air collision would only rob the company of one fairly dispensable writer. Upper management – CFOs, COOs, anything with a C in front – are also encouraged to take separate flights to ensure that the company does not go down with the Airbus A380 you’re on.
But when you travel with your family, you don’t make your wife and kids take a separate flight do you? And Wife and Kids trumps Chairman of the Board.
If we suddenly get into a we-have-lost-cabin-pressure type situation and we get sucked out of the window somewhere over the…wherever, there isn’t a succession plan.
Well, I don’t have one.
And I’ll venture most normal people don’t have one either.
We’re more prepared for what happens if 150 staff buy the farm than a family of four.

Wartika and his family, his fellow villagers have been waiting for this day. It’s something he slipped in between dressing for work and serving newlyweds banana pancakes and coffee.

On November 4, the first black man to become President of the United States won 297 seats when he only needed 270. And the first writer that made me want to become one died. Michael Crichton passed away at 66 of cancer. A week later, the husband of a former colleague crashed his car on the highway. He had a blood clot in his brain, they got it out, he went into a coma, and didn’t come out.

I still don’t have a game plan. At a point in my life where I have a lot more to live for. A friend tells me you tend to get down to it when you have kids.

So then. The first draft of my final will and testament, subject to revision:

• If I get into something where a machine has to breathe for me, unplug it. It’s ok. Let me go down.
  
• Call the Wife and (insert names of kids here). Call my folks, then my brother. Call my boss and tell him I won’t be showing up for work and apologise.
  
• Please keep it quiet, keep it small. Don’t try and religion it up. I worshiped my parents, my wife, and money.
  
• Find AT. He knows what song to play. And trust me – it’s a happy song. Listen to the bridge and the last verse.
  
• Cremation. Buy a tin of whatever house blend Starbucks is serving that week. Mix me in. Don’t bother spreading my ashes over some river or from a cliff. Give it to the Wife. At any point, I would’ve been happiest with her.
  

And somewhere – on the coffee tin in marker pen, I don’t care – have it said:

‘He was an asshole mostly. But he was a good father and he loved his wife. And Jesus, he was awesome in bed.’

Oh thank God

Two weeks ago, I went to church.

I’m not a lapsed Catholic (I’m not a lapsed anything, though my running record has been appalling this past month) so it wasn’t out of guilt, and I hadn’t had a close call, or any of these things. I went to a Catholic church because my dear friend is Catholic. In that sense, no different from being recommended a good Indian restaurant.

As is the format in churches (Catholic or otherwise) the priest gave a sermon by way of a parable:

One day, a boy was walking along a beach when he saw that it was covered in starfish. They had been washed in by the tide and were stranded on the beach. The boy was very sad for the starfish and felt compelled to save them. He began gathering them up in his arms but his arms were small and he dropped almost as many as he carried, and never got any of them far enough to reach the water.
A man passing by saw the boy and said to him ‘Young man, you cannot save the starfish. They are already dead or dying. There is only one of you, and so many of them.’
The boy replied ‘I can try.’
The man smiled sadly and said ‘Yes. But it won’t make a difference.’
The boy stooped and picked up the starfish nearest to him and said to the man:
‘You’re right. But it will make a difference to this one.’
And he flung the starfish, sending it back into the ocean.

It’s a nice story.

He followed up with another sermon, which was captured in his line ‘We were put on Earth to glorify God.’
I don’t agree with this.

I’m not religious. I have many friends who are devout in their faiths and I understand how it’s a positive force in their lives. I think the high point of any religion is to make you into the best version of yourself you can be. And to me, the best version of one’s self is to be able to be good to, and good for, another person.
And here’s the rub: I don’t think we need a God to do that.
I think we have enough power within ourselves to be good to each other.
So the idea of God basically saying ‘Dude, I’m a star. You’re just a fan club I made.’ doesn’t appeal to me.

I told my friend this a few days after and he said:

“This is how I took that sermon. God wants us to be good to each other. And we were created in His image. If we’re being good to each other, then we are glorifying him.”

And my friend has a way of putting these things into perspective.
I’m not any more religious than I was two Sundays ago, but something has changed. And it changed before I stepped into the church.

Like I said. I’m not religious. I’m not entirely convinced a God exists.
I don’t (right now) feel I need one.
I have found my higher power. And I married her.

Now here’s the thing.
Against this very secular (and frankly, not terribly original) sentiment, something has been planted within me, and seems to be growing.

I feel blessed.
Which is why I went to church. I wanted to be thankful to someone – anyone – for this other person whom I seem to have been given. Of course, I’m not completely sentimental. I can speak fluently (and have) to others on how it doesn’t need to be divine intervention, or kismet, or The One. It could very well be just math.

In fact, after that week, I also felt I didn’t need to go to church to be thankful (thank God I’m not Catholic, or that would’ve been an excuse right there).

But I’m thankful nonetheless. Certainly after July 5, I shall never be ungrateful for this life again. Someone picked me, threw me back into the ocean, and made a difference to me. And I’m not even a star.

The Shortest Story I've Ever Told

Me: Will you marry me?
Her: Yes.

Dear A4: Episode 4

Dear Max,


Model HD-10, huh?
Yeah I remember. Everyone remembers. You were top of your game.
IN THE 70s.

A HD-10?
Are you kidding me?
How old’s your model now? 15 years? And you still expect to getting all the hot documents? You still think you can keep doing 300 sheets a day?
You’re dreaming.
WAKE UP.

Look at the competition man:
HD-60s with the magnetic head so they clean up after themselves.
Staple-free staplers.
Industrial strength staplers. Extra long cartridges.
Email, hu-llo.
You can’t compete.
Stop trying to re-live the glory days.

Listen. I sympathise with you, I really do.
When it was your time, you were beautiful.
But it’s not your time anymore. You not being able to take the capacity isn’t what’s wrong here. It’s your unwillingness to evolve.
Move on man.
Think of all you’ve accomplished. Nobody’s stapled more documents than you. Not by a long shot. And between you and me, the way they make em these days, the new models aren’t gonna have half your product life span. They’re on their way out too. They just don’t know it.

But you. You can do all sortsa things now.
Settle down with a nice paper clip (Or two, hey, no judgments my brother).
Relax.
Find yourself a nice gig doing invoices.
Nice honest work, and you get to stay active.
You need to accept that it’s time for you to retire.
And you need to learn that it can be the best time of your life.


A4

P.S. My sister says hi. Said you’d remember. Dude, I don’t even wanna know.