this is a song about a superhero named tony...

there was a guy that worked here in the office with us for a while; nice guy, name was tony. he was an older gentleman, and had actually come out of retirement to help his company run this job. a few weeks ago, tony didn't show up for work one morning. there was no answer on his cell phone and nobody could find him. the owner of his company (also a good friend of his) finally went by his house and found tony- he had died in his sleep the night before.

it's weird when somebody you actually know dies. i wasn't close to him or anything, but he was one of the only other smokers in the office and we would chit-chat outside somethimes; his cubicle also was basically right next to me. he had been fine the day before. it freaked me out a little when it happened- when you are a young man, it dosen't seem like people die every day (even though they actually do.) i suspect this type of thing only increases in frequency as we get older.

my only experiences with death have been pretty traumatic for me, as i'm sure most are. my grandmother died while i was off finding my fortunes and avidly avoiding my dad's side of the family- i still loved my grandma, though, of course. i hadn't talked to her for years and then when i finally snapped out of it, i found out she had died the year before. my grandfather died of lung cancer when i was 10 or 11; he was one of my favorite people in the world and i took it pretty hard. and at least the scariest was my great grandfather who died when i was like 5 or 6: at his funeral, i wasn't sad or scared, just very curious... i begged mom to let me touch him. she (of course) said "no!", but curiosity got the best of me and i did it anyway. suffice it say that the deep pile shag carpeting gave me such a static charge that when i touched him, i saw the spark jump off my finger. i firmly believe that is the root of my pathological fear of zombies.

but i digress.

the real thing i want to talk about is the dream i had last night, i want to capture it before it turns into gossamer teardrops in the sky. so here goes:

in the office. the atmosphere is a little off, maybe it's the lighting. we seem to be having a party or something, or at least everybody seems in a good mood. there are backgroung conversations going on, and (just like in real life) i'm distracted and not paying attention. i vaguely hear somebody say something about tony, about how he's coming by. i think, wow, that's weird- i thought he was dead. so he walks in... and it's a whirlwind of greetings and "hey there!"s and what not. and i'm standing up because i can't believe it. tony is wearing an oversized maroon t-shirt, and like bermuda shorts or something. his hair is long- past his shoulders long - and he is freakin' tan. he looks exactly like tony would have looked if he suddenly became a rastafarian surfer and moved to the bahamas, instead of a bald, beer-bellied, old, white mid-westerner.

well, ok, not exactly... i notice that his right hand is gone, and half of his forearm... but the arm bone is still there. the actual blackened bones are protruding a full 6"+ past his blackened and grizzled forearm nub. and (in-dream) i say to myself "oh, i see! that must have happened when he almost died." and it all made sense. and then i said "hey, tony!", and went in to shake his hand. and as he turned to face me, i had a horrible realization: oh no... he's going to make me shake his fucking arm-bone! and he did, and it was... sticky. sticky like if you had a huge turkey bone and you had spilled maple syrup on it at some point, and it never really washed off. and then it was over, and the alarm clock was blaring.