Bad Party Vibes

“We come into this world alone, and we die alone.” A man said that to me once . I think he had got it from a film. But he nodded to himself and spat  out his cigarette and faced me with a look of beleaguered experience. As if to suggest he had somehow already made this momentous round trip on his own, and come back to spread the disappointing news. It seemed an inappropriate moment to ask him where he had got his hat from. It was nice. It's hard to look like an authentic cowboy in London. I wanted to suggest all the tragic circumstances where people haven't died alone. All the Tsunami's, the earthquakes, road accidents, the 9/11's. But I got distracted thinking one day all those words plurulaised will make for most innappropriate band names. To be honest I really didn't want to be talking about death at all. So I just kept quiet and took a sip off my juice. As a rainbow coloured balloon slowly drifted past us I felt tempted to ask the cowboy how he'd got his invitation. But he burried his head in his hands and seemed to start weeping, the way real men know how to weep. My son came over and blew a party whistle into his face. I looked at him and thought, this is the last time we hold a kids birthday party in a cemetery.