Deadlines

I almost wrote this in Italian -- let's see how long I car resist in this blog monolingually. Yesterday, everybody was in a rush, packing, moving out, graduating while I was strolling down Kirkwood Avenue in the early postmeridian, and for the first time I felt I was dead. The death feeling was so intense and realistic that I anticipated waking up from an eerie dream in that same room I have inhabited the last semester. But I did not wake up and little did I care! I wondered whether by not fearing death one is more alive or vice versa. Is it possible that everybody is distracted from life by these deadlines or is it these very deadlines that make life what it is. Death is the last deadline. I questioned my passions, goals and even raison d'etre, one more time, but little did I conclude or care to know.  I hate to prematurely jump to the conclusion that when one is fearless of death  he has already passed all deadlines and is ready for the last one.