Why I Stopped Riding Horses

My body lies splattered on rocks beneath the cliff where I was thrown from my horse.

I'm dead, but my death needs confirmation. And from a professional. The doctor finally arrives. He observes and then speaks.

"This person here . . . and over there . . . and there . . . is dead—D-E- A-D—dead. Pronounced, 'dead.' Using it in a sentence. The one on the rocks is dead. "

Hands begin hitting hands turning meaningless rhythm into determined applause. A spelling bee for grim reapers. The crowd of spectators take credit for their previously amateur guesses.

"Ha! I knew he was dead."

"Dead people always look like they've lost weight."

"Yes, he does look thinner."

"Of course, that's offset by his new wide-ness."

I guess you may be thinking, as I am writing about my death in the first-person, that this is a story of misinterpretation, or perhaps a miraculous recuperation. No. I'm dead. I can't tell you yet if there's an after-life, but I can tell you that there is definitely an after-thought.

I was told I was going to die. Well, all of us, in a way are told this, because, so far, everyone has. And for most of us, with the exception of those experiencing a terminal disease and whom received a sentence, we have to settle for the universal, "We're all gonna die someday."

In retrospect, lying here dead on these rocks beneath the cliff where I fell off my horse, I would've liked a more specific time-frame. A thoughtful and professional estimate. Even a guesstimate.

But no. Today is my 'someday.' All I got was a, "Hey, you're dead now, get used to it."

I should be anxious—anxious to learn the truth to a life of theological ponderings. Is Christ a documentary or a Marvel comic? I guess I should be grateful. I always wanted to go into death blind, no commitments, no wedding ring with Heaven or Hell. Treat the afterlife like a singles bar and see who, if anyone, picks me up.

So here's what I am thinking about. I'm thinking about how much she wanted me to go riding with her. She was always teasing me about my collection of Charlie Russell prints when my only 'cowboy' experience was getting bucked off Shetland ponies as a kid.

"Hell, no one rides horses, they just draw pictures of them," I told her.

"And who do you think is riding those horses you bet on at the track?" she replied.

"Well, that's different."

"And the people on horses at the rodeo?"

"Yeah, okay, there's that . . . . "

The weakness of my argument quickly led to us galloping on four-legged heartbeats and her hair . . . her hair had its own jockey, jerking her long and lovely reins up and down, spurring her mouth into a shiny, saucer-shaped object that always comes out fuzzy in the photographs—an ear-to-ear smiling UFO.

And her laugh made everything else background noise. A laugh that took aim and shot at rabbits running through the dry grass below. A laugh that screamed down at them, "Run! Run for your lives!" High-pitched bursts sounding like eagle screams but more tease than threat. Her laughing talons pull in and evolve into a feathery wind chime, letting the bunny below go free. The laugh swoops circular, flaps once, twice, and disappears into the sun.

I would've followed that predatory laugh anywhere. And I did. Well, I tried.

Her and her laugh on horseback—what a goddammed lovely last sight.

God, can you smell it? Probably not, but I can—cemetery perfume. It's coming from the plastic flowers, their plastic roots growing down into embalmed bodies, sucking up the juices that keep them looking so life-like.

Weird. The graves look like beds—hotel beds—perfectly made up. And that's great because I'm sleepy—very sleepy. I plump the tombstone pillow and pull up the cover of dirt and fall into my mattress gravely.

However, I never seem to land on my mattress. I'm just falling. I'm falling into a void of erased screams—falling and falling with nothing to grab for, nothing to hold on to—except the memory of her laughter. Not a bad way to fall. And not a bad way to go.

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