UNSTUCK IN TIME WITH BILLY PILGRIM

Should I be worried? See, lately I’m sort of hung up on this phenomenon that’s raised its curious head in my life since turning 76 a year ago. It’s an odd thing. Probably an aging thing.  A bit troubling but much more intriguing than troubling, actually. Still, a real head-shaker, something I‘ve been mentally chewing on like the dog with its proverbial bone.

“When a person drowns, Your whole life passes before you in an instant!”

You‘ve probably heard that at some point in your life. As a kid, it was simply part of the bigger patchwork of urban legends that swirled around the neighborhood back then, something you took for granted– that, and all the other playground malarkey that was getting passed around back then. It was the Fifties, after all. And whenever I think about it back then, I’d try to imagine what it would look and feel like, having all twelve years of my twelve-year-old life, say, go barreling straight across my vision in the blink of a frickin’ eye like a steam locomotive with 4,380 boxcars of animated images on board behind it . A marvelous set of images.  

I remember thinking to myself, But how could anybody ever even know that?  ‘Cause if you drowned, you’re dead, right…? And dead men tell no tales, right?  So… unless there was somebody right there with that drowning person to witness our guy crying out, “Oh my God! I‘m  drowning here and, jeez, my whole life from my birthday till right now just swam by right in front of me… glug glug glug!” then there’d be no way to pass that info on, right?

However in the long run, I was just this young and guileless kid, plus in the Fifties you learned fast that the adults knew everything and you didn’t know squat, so whatever they told you must be RIGHT.

So when my mom “taught” me that if you sliced the tips off both ends of the cucumber that you were peeling, and then rubbed them vigorously in a circular motion back against the cuke’s exposed ends, any bitterness in the cucumber would vanish, like Voodoo. I swallowed that one hook, line, and sinker, and guess what: years later, whenever the grown-up-me prepared a green salad, I was still that guy, the one still performing The “Amazing Cucumber Exorcism Ritual.”  And then too, how many years had to pass before I could shed that Never swim until a full hour after eating a meal or all your muscles’ll cramp right up and you’ll drown! (which could only occur, mind you, after your entire life passed before you in a split-second)? Gawd! That’s pretty embarrassing to look back on now. Yep, go back in a time machine and you’ll find my generation a crazy little tribe of junior shamans with so much occult “knowledge” etched between our ears, you’d fall down and die laughing.

But I’m digressing here. Let me get back on track with that aforementioned phenomenon I started out with: Your entire life would pass before you in an instant.

I’ll begin with a confession. In this, my 77th year on the planet, I’ve begun to be plagued with some slightly serious memory loss. But not the garden variety “memory loss” so many of my peers complain about all the time. No, “I’ve got that beat,” as Hooper once assured Captain Quint and Officer Brody during their Who’s Got the Prize-Winning Scar Competition? down in the belly of the Orca. Truth? I’ve pretty much had to get myself over the embarrassment of constantly having to just come right out with, “Hey, look. I’ve got your name dancing right on the tip of my tongue but just can’t for the life of me seem to spit it out. So please accept my blushing apology for having to ask you to remind me what it is again.” And of course 99 times out of a hundred (because we old farts almost exclusively end up chewing the fat with other old wrinkled bags of bones like ourselves), the response I get back is the knowing chuckle and warm assurance not to worry, that yes, they too often find themselves in the very same boat. Now see, that is what I call the garden variety of geriatric memory loss. The trouble is, with me it’s much much more often than… often. And see, we’re not in the same boat, because my boat’s leaking like a sieve. And sure, we all occasionally cross the living room and end up wondering why the devil it was I came over there for. But with me? Not so much ‘occasionally’ about it.

Fortunately, I’ve become big on The Philosophy of Acceptance over time. So the way I view it, a good portion of the trillions of gazillions of souls who’ve populated the planet between the time of the Neanderthals and the astronauts probably had to deal with memory loss too, so… it’s just my turn, right? They got through it. One way or another. So too then will I. Nothing I can do about it anyway.

However, and here’s the thing, FINALLY:

My actual problem is not the fact that I’m seriously plagued with short-term memory loss. Nope. The problem is something quite the opposite. Allow me to demonstrate with the following dramatic dialogue, depicting a true story (with close to 90% accuracy of the exact word-for-word dialogue recalled from memory [yes, my memory]):

Lights! Camera! ACTION!

Me: Hey, kiddo. Uhmmm… There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.

Wife: What’s that?

Me:  Well… alright. I’ll tell you. But I gotta warn ya, it’s weird.

Wife:  (sarcastically) With you? Huh. Who woulda thunk it? What?

Me: OK. see, I’m thinking here… alright, here it is: I think  I may be dying.

Wife:  …What? No, wait wait wait— what’re you talking about? Are you OK?

Me: Well, yeah. Sure. I’m. good. Fine. Basically. But I mean…OK, actually, I’m thinking might be I might be… I dunno. Drowning or something.

Wife: Dying? Drowning?

Me: Well, don’t panic. It’s OK.

Wife: Don’t panic. OK! What, the house is burning down but…don’t panic?

Me: No, it’s not like that…it’s…

Wife: Not LIKE that!? So what’s it like then. Talk!

Me: OK. OK.

Wife: You told me after your last check-up, everything was good, was fine!

Me: It was. It is. It’s just that… just that…

Wife: Just what?

Me:  Yes. Yeah, I will! I am…fine. See, it’s just that… OK, you remember that old saying about how… just before a swimmer drowns, his whole life passes before him? You remember that? His whole frickin’ life?

Wife: Hey! Talk to me. Now. And make sense. I mean it!

Me: Well, see, that’s been happening to me lately. Only not in a flash like, you know, just before going down for the third and final time. But see, this has been going on for…. months.

Wife: You lost me. Your whole life…? In months?

Me: Well it seems like it anyway. Pretty much. Not in a blink of an eye, no. But still, that’s what this whole thing’s been reminding me of. Only like in slow motion…

Wife: Your life. Passing before you? Your life which you haven’t even… finished yet?

Me: I know. I get it.

Wife: And this has nothing to do with dying or swimming.

Me: That was… a metaphor

Wife: So, then…

Me: Look. I know it sounds stupid. It is stupid. But it’s happening to me. And I was just needing to tell you what’s been going on! To get it off my chest.

Wife: You’re not dying…

Me: Not in the forseeable future anyway…

Wife: So your health… it’s OK.

Me: For 77 anyway. You know how my health is. I haven’t kept anything from you.

Wife: Oh please.

Me: Hey…what can I say? My life is passing before me. Or so it seems, is all. So… it’s LIKE the drowning thing.

Wife: Even right now?

Me: Well, no. Not this minute. It’s not a constant thing. I do get breaks in between. Just…it’s on-going. This morning. Last night. Last week. Twenty minutes ago.

Wife: Twenty minutes ago.

Me: Yeah. Approximately. Pretty much.

Wife: Twenty minutes ago what?

Me: Another memory. Again. Clear as a bell.Which is why I’m bringing this up right now. Fresh on my mind. Just sitting there on the couch and it popped into my head in a flash. I didn’t ask for it. But when it happens, it’s just like I’m there, it’s like an industrial strength déjà vu. Almost like Virtual Reality. But not.

Wife: You said again. When was the last one before that?

Me: I dunno, sometimes when I’m lying in bed, almost asleep. Or… just lying awake in the morning, you know? Quite often it’s when I’m in the shower with all those little jets of hot water needling my scalp. Flash-backs from early childhood. My brain’s a regular amusement park these days.Very specific and detailed memories.

Wife: OK then. So? What was this one? This time.

Me: Oh. Something that happened back when I was, what… four? That big family reunion up north. Before Joyce and Bruce were even born, so just Ma, Dad, Denny, and me. This isn’t the first or only time I’ve ever reclled it. I’m not saying that. Actually, it’s a common remembrance for me. Part of my personal history. In fact, I think I’ve probably told you about it before.

Wife: Your mom’s family. Yeah…

Me: The rooster?

Wife:  Oh. OK. Yeah. That definitely… sounds familiar.

Me: No idea what triggered it today though. It just came flooding back right out of the blue. With a vengeance. In the past, whenever I’d happen to think of it, it’s always been kind of a flat, ho-hum, standard, two-dimensional memory. No where near as vivid as it was today. A steamy hot, sunny summer afternoon. I only mention that because, God, I was conscious of the sun’s heat prickling the skin on my bare arms. See, that’s the thing. These recent remembrances are always so vivid now. The only way they could be moreso would be if they were in 3-D. They’re not. It’s just, most of the senses are all in play. Smells. Tastes. Touch, etc. But why it popped up today? Or when they pop up any day? No clue. They just…come.

Wife: What are some other memories for instance?

Me: God, such a slew of’em. Fight on the playground. Getting hopelessly lost in Bangor as a little kid. Fighting tooth and nail on the operating table, age seven, being anesthetized against my will. Plucking slimy night crawlers out of the wet grass late at night with a flashlight. Memories. I got a lifetime of’em. And all… saved up apparently. Because they’re all still there! Seemingly! Everything I’ve ever done, every minute of my life is… right there like an apple ripe for the picking. Coming back to wow me all this last year. Like watching, no, experiencing, a movie.

And sure, I’m not drowning, but honestly? It really seems like my whole life is passing before me, or will have before I’m through. Not in a flash, no, in real time. So odd. Gotta say, I kinda enjoy it actually.

Wife: Well, it’s good if you can enjoy it.

Me: But you know what? There’s an irony standing out like a sore thumb here. I mean here I am in the present, losing my short-term memory. Struggling to come up with acquaintances’ names for crying out loud, and even common everyday words? Our conversations have become games of charades, you guessing and supplying me with the words I’m fishing for, to finish my freakin’ sentences. So damn frustrating. Embarrassing. But then on the contrary, my long-term memory is kicking into over-drive, over-compensating off the charts.

Wife: Seems like you’re handling it…pre tty well.

Me:  Yeah, I guess. I’m unable to answer the simple question, What’d you do this weekend? But on the other hand, I dare you to ask me about what I was doing at that Craig family reunion in Presque Isle as a three and a half foot tall little tyke back in the summer of 1950. I can describe the half ear of buttered corn-on-the-cob, peas, potato salad, hot dog, chips, and the brownie I’d already taken a bite out of, all lying right there on my paper plate… me, belly down in the grass, propped on my elbows. But man oh man, I can really paint you a detailed damn mug shot of that feathered, lizard-eyed, Godzilla Rogue Rooster that came lurching down over me suddenly from out of nowhere and landing right in my picnic plate! Red wattles a-flapping all herky-jerky, his hellish eye giving me the hairy eyeball! Me screaming and wailing bloody murder while he went to stabbing the hell out of the corncob with his killer beak, rolling peas overboard everywhere into the grass! I mean, I’d never even seen a goddamned rooster in my 4-year old life before that, let alone beak-to-nose!

But anyway, here I am today, a 77 year old retired English teacher who’s seemingly become “unstuck in time” like Billy Pilgrim, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s protagonist in SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, and also undergoing something similar to what Daniel Keyes’ character, Charlie Gordon, went through in the novel FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON. Charlie being the fictitious mentally challenged man who undergoes experimental brain procedures that stimulate his 5^th-grade-level intelligence into rapidly blossoming to the point of unparalleled genius, only to sadly lapse back into an even more severely handicapped condition than before as the effectiveness of the drugs dissipates at the end. And yes, here’s me, a guy who was never either mentally handicapped or anywhere near a genius, but who did rise from an embarrassingly mediocre high school student to earning a Bachelors in education, and then going on to teach high school composition, vocabulary, and English literature for 34 years. And guess what: now being reduced to the ignominy of having to rely on the kindness of strangers and loved ones to charitably drop the pittance of a common noun, verb, or an acquaintence’s name in my rusty tin beggar’s cup to keep me going in a conversation.