Flash

Whatever You Do ...

Whatever you do, don't ... WHAT?

I'm driving myself crazy here. All because some crackpot sent me a DVD of someone that looked a lot like me, but older, with urgent advice. The picture and sound broke up in mid-sentence. I half-expected the whole thing to self-destruct like the recordings in Mission Impossible. But it just sat there, doing nothing. I cleaned it, used the scratch repair kit, tried playing it again, swore at it, reset my VCR, and prayed over it. But nothing changed. No matter how often I re-played it, it was always the same.

"Lisa, this is Lisa. This is not a hallucination, or a dream, or a joke. Don't mess this up. Whatever you do, don't ... "

Static, rioting pixels, silence and emptiness.

Maybe the whole thing is a prank, designed to send me over the edge at last. A couple of my friends have suggested that perhaps I should consider relocating to a more protected environment, where the food is easy to chew and decision-making is virtually unnecessary.

Or maybe I really will go over the edge in a year or two and will send this message back into the past to drive me over the edge, creating an infinite loop of forseeable consequences.

Or maybe I got a professional theatrical make-up job during that black-out last week and produced that video right in my own living room and sent it to myself.

I took the DVD to a forensics lab that specializes in restoring things that seem lost forever. They said it would take time. Maybe more time than I have. All I can do is wait.

So, what should I do while the Damocles' sword of uncertainty is hanging over my head?

I could get drunk and hope for the best.

Or book a flight to someplace on my bucket list. But maybe that's what I was warned against.

I feel like the Greek king Oedipus, who left home because a prophet told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Nobody told him he was adopted. He landed in a strange land, killed an evil-tempered king, and married the widow. The man he killed was his father. Oedipus was so upset that he destroyed his own eyes and wallowed in guilt for the rest of his miserable life. Which goes to show that you should never keep it a secret if you have an adopted child.

I did what any sensible person would do. I called my mother. She is 97 and lives in a nursing home, but she still remembers how life works.

"Live as fully as possible," she told me. "That's all anyone can do. The future will take care of itself."

That got me thinking. I haven't really done much except sulk and drink myself stupid since I was pushed out of my job for being too old.

Is it ever too late to make a new beginning?

Maybe that's what the message was: WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T GIVE UP.