The Alone

Sitting, standing, lying beside every person is their Alone.  It is the impenetrable part of them.  It is not engaged.  It is not busy.  It is not talking, sleeping, eating, having sex.  It is alone.  It watches everything, hears everything, knows everything yet remains unmoved.  It is the dispassionate Observer.  It is the closest ally and, in a sense, the worst enemy because no matter how you try, you cannot not be Alone with You're Alone.  No manner or amount of distraction distracts the Alone from being Alone.  It is as close as your breath and as distant as the Sun.  There's no running away yet you can't embrace it either. 

But if you could.  Perhaps that's what we do when we die.  We embrace and become one with our Alone.  Last week we caught a sick juvenile galah.  He had a hatchet thin keel bone and I thought it was probably a lost cause to try and save it.  But I had a go.  I tried different medication.  It made no difference.  It didn't eat and in two days it died.  We were sitting on the couch and I heard it scream.  When I went in it was already dead. 

It screamed as it died.  What does that mean?  Death isn't always the friend.  Animals are supposed to be better off because they don't have a sense of their own mortality.  What happened with that baby galah?  These wasting diseases that claim them every year, while fatal do not seem to be painful so why this screech of pain at the end?

Years ago a galah sat high in the silky oak tree down near the horse yards.  It screamed and died and plummeted to earth at our feet.   Is it the shock of not being alone?  Do they have an alone like we have an alone?  Perhaps not.  They are closer to themselves and do not erect the barriers between  themselves and reality.  I suppose that's how it is.  I have no idea really.  Like my Alone, sitting with me here at the computer as I type, watching, waiting for that day when my Alone and I are no longer alone.