John: A Fable.

John complains. I ask questions, bludgeon him to get the answers and walk off to avoid the O.E.D. length complaining. "Well, they should'a done this, I tried to do that, this didn't work, I tried to cut this, but they didn't tell me, and then I thought they meant, ..." and on and on, a lethal Mahler symphonic ending.

He never moves aside. Never. Not so much as a shoulder twist in passing. Stop quickly enough in his path, maybe. I believe he'd just crash on into a person. I haven't tried it yet. I only remember later to stop and pretend to tie a boot. He's like a six-foot-one inch-fifty-nine year-old 11 year old in a mall corridor: oblivious.

This morning he did not move his car quickly enough from the path of a train and 72 coal cars of fine Wyoming anthracite. The car was torn like old dry rags.

Tomorrow, everyone will have something good to say about him.


Note: The dying part is the fable part.