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Joshua Alan Doetsch

~ Author & Scrivnomancer

Joshua Alan Doetsch

Tag Archives: death

The Smell of Coffee Attracts the Dead

16 Wednesday Dec 2009

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

coffee, coffee grounds, death, dreamlands, dreams, far away, ghosts, haunting, isolation, living abroad, shades, the dead, underworld

Being away from everything is like being dead.

Not in a morbid or melodramatic light…just in the sense of being inaccessible and not accessing.

I had this vivid dream, years ago—I was dead. The afterlife was just my parents home. Only for the dead, like me, the ceilings were exceptionally high—small cathedral high, with a sort of inner balcony running a square around the house. And I (and occasional other wayward spirits), existed solely (souly?) in that square.

I walked around the square.

And again.

And existence was looking down—gigantically down—at my family and friends, doing day to day stuff. I am close. But I cannot interact. Cannot quite see it at their level or angle either, just looked down through my square.

And every stupid, little thing has the kind nostalgia that makes it hard to remain standing. They’d brew some coffee, and I’d be like, “Ye Gods! They’re brewing coffee. I used to brew coffee with them like that. I used to drink it out on the deck, with them, like that.”

And this went on. I occasionally took a break to comment on something with a random, wandering spirit, share a few jokes, make a few new Plutonian acquaintances—because I can be a funny-self-depreciating-charming bastard when I’m not stuck in my head—and it’s a few laughs between spooks. But they move on and by the time I turn my head again, for another comment, it’s a different face, or none at all and just me on my little inner balcony.

It was an emotionally engaging dream, that stretched through quite a bit of dreamtime, and was, oddly, very realistic. I really thought I was dead.

But I woke up.

Breakfast probably tasted very good that morning.

Well. Let’s be honest. It was lunch.

It wasn’t a horrifying dream. It was just funny, sad, and nostalgic at turns. There are some BNL songs that feel like that dream.

Anyway, where was I…

Oh yeah…Norway.

I’m away from everything and everyone. And I find myself getting little glimpses of what all my family and friends are doing…but not from the ground angle, and not really interacting. Emails and posts and Skype video—I’m looking down through my little square and saying, “Ye Gods! I used to have coffee with them like that.” Occasionally, at work, I turn away and make a comment or a joke with one of the new faces. And I wave the severed hand I keep at my desk. And I explain that, no, not all Americans have severed hands lying around (just us patriotic ones).

I’m gone. But I haven’t been forgotten (always flattering). And occasionally, my loved ones perform these odd seance rituals involving click-clacking on lettered keys, and they conjure a little, ethereal image of me or sometimes just my disembodied voice or just cryptic textual messages manifesting on the Ouija board computer screens.

The inverse perspective is a sort of post-apocalyptic plotline where I’m the only one left alive, contacting the dead with my own rituals (only in my inner movie, I don’t fuck up Richard Matheson’s book).

And then… My God! Are you having coffee?

So I thought of that dream (on the off chance that I wasn’t laying the parallels on thick). Again, I’m not invoking a death comparison for a sense of macabre angst…but more for the Weirdness of the experience. It’s been Weird.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

Mwahahahahahaha!

18 Wednesday Mar 2009

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

death, funerals, life, mad science, reese



A several weeks ticked by…just like that.

Over a month in fact.

They’ve been light laughter and heavy laughter weeks. A little life and a little death. A coin flips…but it all balances out in the end. I promise.

DEATH:

My friend, Ken’s grandmother died several weeks ago. Ken is my oldest friend that I still see on a regular basis (and having someone around that knew you in 3rd grade sometimes helps to keep certain things in perspective) and I knew his grandmother.

I could conjure up any number of memories of her, but the one that surfaces quickest, for no reason that I’m able to discern, is sitting in her living room, in the very same retirement home that my brother Nick and I had performed a magic show for the residents (where we horribly, horribly botched the Floating Mummy Trick), with Ken and her, back in high school, just as Fall was starting to deepen, the candies in the bowl on the coffee table were already taking on Halloweenish shapes, the Thriller video played in the background on a TV, and all seemed very, very right with the world…


 

I went to the wake and the funeral. Among other things, she was buried with a Cubs cap. Even in her final letter to her family, she still had not figured out what she had done wrong to raise so many Sox fans.

Outside it was cold and bright. The graveyard was small.

I, not having the normal schedule and responsibilities of an upstanding person my age, was in the unique position to spend the majority of three days with Ken to facilitate the grieving process. Our chosen method: nostalgic video games. Ken purchased a disc containing some 30+ old Sega games from the late 80s early 90s and we played and played.

Remember 16-Bit pixels?

Oh you kids with your advanced polygons, blackberry phones, and flying cars!

It’s amazing just how many memories are locked in sensory stimulus…even very specific beeps, squawks, menus, and digital music.

Games we played when those who are gone were still around.

We supplemented the games with alcohol, more friends, cookies, smoke breaks, laughs, and forming a new band on Guitar Hero: World Tour.

LIFE:

The next week I went to help celebrate a new life—Caitlyn Jade Glass, the daughter of my good friends, Amy and Jeramie, was getting baptized. This also gave me the opportunity to visit little Caitlyn’s older sister, my Goddaughter, Reese.

Reese was barely past infancy the last I saw of her…and now she is almost three. I had worries that she wouldn’t remember me…or what if we didn’t get along?

These doubts vanished when we shared several conspiratorial smiles throughout the mass.

I discovered Reese is very talkative. She gave me an entire symposium on here theories on the phenomenon of princessdom (“A princess just gots to!”).

In talking with Amy, I also discovered that Reese has taken to performing mischievous acts (like snatching various objects and declaring them hers) finishing off with a super-villain laugh. Not just a “ha-ha”…but a full blown, genuine super-villain-mad-scientist laugh.

“Mwahahaha!”

I’m very proud. A lot goes into a good mad scientist laugh—cackle and pitch and cadence. Technique is everything. Such a good start and so many years ahead to help Reese perfect that maniacal laughter.

I’ve half a mind to build a Doomsday Device for her third birthday.

I also, a while back, promised Reese a children’s book—something I can’t solve by driving out to Barnes & Noble…as I promised to write it.

I finished my evening with Reese with a very competitive game of face-making. I’m no slouch. I summon up every ounce of humility when I say I’m freaking brilliant at making faces. But Reese kept right up with me. I’m impressed. Even overwhelmed.

What can I say? She had me at, “Mwahahahaha!”

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