death

Rest In Peace, Earl the Pearl

dawn-in-montreal

“I’ve just found out that my oldest friend, Earl, has died,” I told Paul. “We were friends in Jackson Heights until we were twelve years old. Then I moved to Lindenhurst.”

“Even today I can remember his parents’ thick Puerto Rican accents, and how his brother, Junior, used to pick on me. It just goes to show what happens when someone makes a really lasting impression. We never got a chance to meet again, in person, after September 11, 1971, though it might as well have been yesterday.”

I then went to Youtube to listen to Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days”.

Welcome back to Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. On her site, you can read the rules. Dale Rogerson has supplied this week’s photo prompt.

we only have one life to live

Of course I most certainly don’t give any credibility whatsoever to the dualistic claims of eastern religions and modes of thought which claim that each individual must go through a series of different lifetimes in order to be purged enough so that he may be happy in the next life. Beatle George Harrison may have been quite an absolute expert at music but he got it all wrong when it came to that topic. God puts each of us here for only one opportunity to do the right thing. In that sense my view of life is more linear than cyclical. Whenever a new baby is conceived, God does not insert a new soul into a material container. Each individual is conceived with his body and soul inextricably linked permanently to each other. The Catholic Church has consistently taught that for over two thousand years.
“It is appointed unto men to die once but after this comes the judgment.” (Heb. 9:27). That’s where the Four Last Things-Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell-must be dealt with. Once someone has faced up to his Particular Judgment immediately upon his decease, he goes either to Purgatory temporarily, straight to Heaven, or straight to Hell.

echinodermic propensity

what goes around comes back around

castles made of sand fall into the sea eventually

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Fleener,” Doctor Fensterblau told Mabel as Harry’s favorite Hendrix song played in the background.

“We couldn’t save him.”

Just then Harry was greeted by a tall, dapper, gaunt stranger.

“Ah, welcome, Mr. Fleener!” exclaimed his host in an ominous voice.

“I’m Mr. Monahan. Do sign in at the gate, won’t you?”

“Where am I?” Harry demanded to know.

“You’ll get your explanation in good time, my friend,” was Monahan’s reply.

Harry thought back to his French classes. “‘Sable’ rhymes with ‘diable’, he mused.

“That’s not all they have in common,” Monahan reminded him.

Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us weekly in Friday Fictioneers, an attempt to write a hundred~word story based upon a picture. This week’s photo prompt was supplied by Ceayr.

the quick and the dead

jhc5

“I’m so happy St. Gabriel’s has a graveyard adjacent the church,” Eleanor told Robert as they left after Mass.

“That way people can always be reminded of the Four Last Things.”

“When we were in school,” he reminded her, “We learned all those prayers and admonitions: ” ‘Tempus fugit,memento mori’, the ‘Dies Irae’. ‘Remember, man, that thou art dust…'”

“Heaven, Hell and Purgatory are real,” she intoned. “Even ‘Brideshead Revisited’ starts out with ‘Et In Arcadia Ego’.

“I wonder who all those pretty little girls are over there, honey,” she mused.

“What girls?” he asked. “I don’t see anyone. We’re all alone.”

This week’s photo prompt comes from J.Hardy Carroll. Our fearless leader, Rochelle Wisoff~Fields, is in charge of Friday Fictioneers, a weekly attempt at writing a story, based upon a photo prompt, of one hundred words.

the adventures of larabie and miss kitti at death’s vestibule

Larabie and Miz Kitti had a long standing friendly rivalry.

One Saturday morning she truly overwhelmed him.

“Go through the tunnel. I double dip defy you,” was her ultimatum.

“No thanks. I’ll have to face God in there and I haven’t been to confession in a few weeks.”

“Heaven, Purgatory, Hell,” he stammered. “I’m in no hurry.”

“Nobody likes a sissy,” she chanted.

“People only call it Death’s Vestibule as a joke. You don’t honestly believe that crock, do you?

Hmmmmmmm?”

Torn between cold logic and traditional local legend, Larabie was stumped. He couldn’t wait to

settle this score but good.

tempus fugit. memento mori

I suppose that I have known, since a very early age, of the inevitably of my eventual death. When I was first born I was very sick, with a life-threatening problem, and after effects that lingered all throughout my childhood, so I was constantly reminded of the risk of my early death. The earliest death that really stands out in my mind, in a concrete way, is my Uncle Gino’s when I was a twelve year old kid. As far as I know, there wasn’t any feeling of total awe at my having realized that I would, sooner, or later, be required, by definition, to die. Having always gone to Catholic schools, I was always reminded of it, but it must have inevitably struck me as just some entirely abstract factual reality. Unlike many people I simply don’t have a profoundly cathartic story to tell about how some ultimate moment of truth profoundly changed my life and perception of that specific aspect of reality. Sooner or later, each of us shall be in either Heaven (usually by way of Purgatory), or Hell. That’s the ultimate inevitable eschatological reality of the four last things. Death carries with it at least two main fears for each of us: the fear of all the physical and emotional torment that goes with the end of his life, and the fear of eternal damnation for those who go to hell. I really have to wise up and to start dealing with it in a more first hand manner very soon.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/finite-creatures/

http://abozdar.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/patience/

http://youaintspecial.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/prove-it/

http://fibercompulsion.com/2014/10/20/infinite/

http://shameport.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/spinning-dust/

http://agirllikemee.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/on-a-sunny-summer-afternoon/

yeah yeah yeah

John Winston (later Ono) Lennon only lived from October 9, 1940 until December 8,1980. He was a founding member of the Beatles. He’s always been quite a favorite of mine even though we’re poles apart. Ever since I was little I’ve always listened to the Beatles and to all of Lennon’s solo songs. Today would have been his seventy fourth birthday. It’s kind of odd that I’ve always been so favorably impressed by all his antics because, as people have always reminded me, he was such an extreme liberal and I’ve always been such an equally radical conservative. I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed his music, story telling, and obnoxious antics though. Unfortunately the Beatles broke up in April of 1970 so I’m entirely too young to be able to remember them from the days when they were still together. Like most people my age, though, I’m quite an enthusiastic better-late-than-never fan. It’s too bad that there’s never again going to be anyone who can possibly be that talented or interesting.Let’s all kick back for a while and have a good time listening to his songs and reminiscing about all his behavior. I’ve always enjoyed his Beatle music, especially the early years, better than his solo music but it’s all very good. It’s too bad we can’t have him around anymore.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/ready-set-done-4/

http://tombalistreri.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/without-vulgarity-2/

http://agirllikemee.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/she-came-home-drunk/

http://artmoscow.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/fate-cuts-it-short/

la di dah day la di dah

I’ve always enjoyed exceptionally warm weather and dreaded the several months of the year when it’s cold. Autumn is, to a certain extent, quite an exceptionally nice experience for me though. At first, when all the leaves start changing colors and orange and black seem to be everywhere, it’s such a fine feeling. I have many decades’ worth of nice memories of Halloween, especially when I was a kid, and Thanksgiving, most significantly when I used always to spend it with cousins in western New York. I remember during my very young days, as far back as Jackson Heights, the weather on Halloween was usually so bitter cold that I was forced to explain to people that somewhere under my fifty layers of heavy clothes was a costume, and that I really was dressed as either the Green Hornet or some other then-current character. Thanksgiving in North Tonawanda, during the 1980’s, was also frequently bitter cold. November can often be exceptionally rainy. Once the full brunt of autumn settles in, though, it then becomes quite a seriously nasty depressing time for me. The miserable weather and dark gloomy atmosphere have always struck me as exceptionally frustrating, and are also quite an intense metaphor, for me, of the dark side of life. My mother died during the last week of September and my father died during the first week of November so that adds yet another dark property to the fall. When I was a kid autumn brought with it the beginning of the school year, that was always welcome, but as an adult I can count on no such milestone to keep things interesting. Walt Whitman’s poem, “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” from “Leaves Of Grass”, specifically references the ninth month as a symbol of birth. September, the ninth month, is when fall begins. For me it represents all the good and bad that life has to give. Change has never been easy for me. The positive and negative aspects of fall perfectly reflect the good and bad things in life.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/autumn-leaves/

http://lifeconfusions.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/autumn-leaves/

http://stacilys.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/autumn-creative-collaboration/

http://calandrabranch.com/2014/09/21/its-my-season/

ralph’s nightmare

“I’m having that dream again,” Ralph thought, “the one where I’m wandering so aimlessly.”

He could never figure out where he even was, whether it was Purgatory or maybe even Hell. All he knew was that whenever he had that dream he was always so bitterly inconsolably sad. By now he was accustomed to it-the bleak lonely terrain, the sense of helplessness and loss. Lately he’d been having the dream so frequently. At the same time his wife Mabel was making funeral arrangements with the undertaker.

“I’m so sick and tired of it all!” Ralph gasped.