I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow Read Online Free

would really allow for a beautiful death—an old man flying out the window after a long life.
    I take my coffee, sip it, and wonder how many coffees I’ve left to go.
    THURSDAY.
    I’m with Helen and Katie, auditioning a story I’ve written for my radio show. In the middle of my reading, Marie-Claude enters the room and sends them outside to play.
    â€œWhat wrong with you?” she asks. “Why are you reading my children a story about death?”
    â€œIt’s existential,” I say. “Plus, they asked me to read it.”
    â€œMy nine- and seven-year-old said, ‘Please, Uncle Jonny, favour us with a story about death’? Are you insane?”
    â€œAs their godfather, I have a responsibility to offer lessons in spiritual hygiene.”
    â€œYou? Hygiene? Helen says you told her that when you were her age you only bathed once a week.”
    â€œI wanted her to know that everyone is different,” Isay. “That’s why there are career aptitude tests. The kids who bathe every day will be more inclined towards work in the public sector—making pastries and giving tours of model homes; while the once-a-week kids might be more comfortable hoboing, bohoing, or radio show–hosting. And in this way, we maintain a balance.”
    Marie-Claude does not buy my version of a just society, and throws me out of her house.
    Â 
    SEIZING THE DAY

    There once was a man named Chalchas the Greek. When he was only a young lad, Chalchas learned that he would one day die.
    â€œIt happens to all of us,” his father said. “It’s just the way things go.”
    The boy was surprised by the news. Sure, his father would die. Yes, his mother and even his brothers and sister would die. His grandfather had already died, as had the heroes he learned about at school. This all made sense to him. But that he, Chalchas the Greek, would die? No, there had to be a glitch in there somewhere.
    Though it didn’t make sense to his heart, he knew it to be true intellectually, and so each morning Chalchas awoke and thought, “Today could be the day I die.”
    On some days, he was struck with the thought several hundred times. It became impossible to focus on anything else. Back then, there were no psychiatrists or therapists, so Chalchas went to see an oracle.
    The old oracle lived in the forest, on the outskirts of town. It was a full day’s journey there, and when Chalchas found him, he was sitting in the shade of a large tree, staring up at the sky with wide-open eyes. Chalchas wasted no time in getting to the point.
    â€œI want to know when I’ll die,” he said.
    Chalchas figured that if he could just know how much time he had left, he could relax. A man only died once, but the way he was worrying, it felt like he was going through the motions of dying every day.
    After a few attempts at dissuading him, the oracle acquiesced, revealing to Chalchas the precise day upon which his death would arrive. It was a pretty far-off day, though perhaps not as far off as Chalchas would have liked. If he was honest with himself, he was in fact hoping the oracle would consult his great book of death and, flipping back and forth between pages, finally utter, “That’s odd. I have no listing here for Chalchas the Greek. It would seem you do not die. How weird is that?”
    And so the days passed and the day of Chalchas’s death grew nearer just as the day of all of our deaths
    draws nearer. Except Chalchas was able to count down to his. Each morning he would awake and think, “2764 to go. 1873. 922.”
    As the days dwindled, what once felt like a vast number of days—an ocean—slowly became a paltry year. And then that paltry year became a few skeletal months, and then, what felt like very suddenly, those months turned into weeks and when they did, Chalchas took to himself. He wanted to be alone in his final days to really cherish each second without