Third shifts, first drafts (pretty much a monologue, for now)

 (A YOUNG MAN IN HIS 20s, WEARING A BUSINESS CASUAL OUTFIT- DRESS SHIRT, SLACKS, SHINEY SHOES- WITH AN UNBUTTONED MEDICAL LAB COAT OVERTOP, STEPS FORWARD TO A SPOTLIGHT, CENTER STAGE)

I started constantly thinking about dying in the first grade.
A kid who sat in the back row of my homeroom class stopped showing up one day. There was no official announcement or counseling or anything back then, so it was a mystery when Daniel Rodus stopped being at school. After gossiping with each other and repeating the scuttlebutt from our parents, my classmates and I heard he died drinking purple poison by accident – he thought it was Kool Aid.
Our teacher dropped her lesson book and her voice cracked as she told us he was not coming back.
I have never been nervous about death. I researched it. I studied all the possible causes, probable and improbable, and made sure I knew how to be saved in every religion. I started always wearing black in middle school, to greet the Grim Reaper on his terms.

When my first cat, Rodus, died I realized I didn’t know enough about him to give him to death properly. I didn’t want that happening when I died, so I started documenting myself, with pictures and journals, and putting phrases about me in other people’s mouths.
I spent hours interviewing people who knew they were going to die – well, hell, we all know we are going to die, why not wrap our heads around it and plan for it - we plan for careers and families and retirements.

After I finished my Master’s degree in Mortuary Science from the Univ. of Minnesota I got my dream job in the city morgue watching the dead bodies overnight. I learned a lot about grief and fake grief, anger and hidden joy, and how people ignore the amount of dead bodies that go into the system each day. Thousands of bodies come into a county morgue each year - and those are only the officially processed suspect, unnamed or unclaimed ones.
I try to see all the dead bodies that pass through here. I look into each of their eyes, imagining what their last words were. That’s how I started my latest Death project - writing my last words.

I may not say my last words for 40 years, but I may say them tomorrow. I don’t wanna sound stupid, or be misheard or misunderstood or not even heard. I wanna sound poetic, respectful, thoughtful, not foolish or in a rush. I am gonna have the perfect last words written out and ready to go, memorized and practiced, and I will utter them with amazing grace and it will be the sparkle on my dark trip beyond, never to come back – probably never to come back anyway.

Lots of quotes from dying people seem bewildered or childlike, some are angry or happy - it depends on who surrounds you, I guess. I want my last words to start a party. My words will inspire a grand reflection and realization of beauty and loss and the future for those around me at the time that I run out of blood, or my lung collapses, or I’m trapped in a burning car, or slowly crushed by a circus elephant or trash compacter, or whatever. I may put them on a voice recorder and just press play on it if I need to, to sound right and give the situation the appropriate gravitas - I need to make a note to buy a voice recorder and carry it around.
However, most of my last words seem rigid and boring like a college professor or a financial planner. I have so many drafts, and barely any of them are fun – the best I can get is wistful with a tad melancholy.
My favorite last line, that I just wrote, the current perfect combination of nouns and verbs and emotions and memories to start a celebration, is this (HE LICKS HIS LIPS AND CLEARS HIS THROAT)  – “Dear boy ………..

 (HE FALLS DOWN ON STAGE - LIGHTS GO OUT)