Chance, encountered.

There was a chance

that I,

sitting here,

might make a choice today.

Maybe I would leave the house,

see some of the world outside,

take in a movie,

or watch children playing in the park.

Maybe I’ll go and hit the pavement,

fill out some job applications,

get a quiet lunch somewhere,

and keep chicken salad off my tie.

Perhaps I would find a twenty-dollar bill,

go and buy some treat,

have enough left for a train ride back home

and enjoy the rest of the night.

Or maybe I should save that twenty dollars.

I am out of a job, after all.

and by staying home, I save that twenty

that I never got because I never went out.

Have I lost forty, now?

I suck at math.

This could be the day that everything changes,

or another day of nothing.

It could be the day they strike at us again.

You might ask who “they” are.

and I would say, “well, them.”

Those that would do us harm.

Some indefinable set of harmdoers.

Terrorists, lone nuts in shopping malls,

it doesn’t make any difference.

Knowing their agenda doesn’t make anyone less dead.

Ok, I’ll grant you, maybe something wonderful will happen today.

Why anticipate the morbid?

You have to live every day like it’s the last or something like that.

If this were my last day, then would I be looking for a damn job?

I think if I had one day to live. I’d hug someone,

my wife and kid maybe,

go to a zoo, though it’s a bad weather day for that.

But hell, it’s my last day,

so the weather isn’t getting any better.

And yes, I know I’m dealing with hypotheticals here,

but hypotheses are math,

and I told you I suck at math.

I can only be open to all possibilities,

and in all possibilities, none.