When his heart stopped on the table, and the nurse pronounced the time,
Graham was surprised as any that his consciousness survived.
He was a lifelong bureaucrat; venial, unrefined,
with all of the complexity of a soured table wine.
He was not meet for Heaven. He wasn’t good or kind.
He thought he’d join the Devils, but his option was declined.
So he wandered as a lonely ghost in a world gone monochrome.
Surely there were others like him but they did not make themselves known.
He grew envious of his ashes, resting silent in their urn.
His mortal flesh, consumed by flames, was at no risk of return.
One time he tried to say a prayer, to stir the mystic Chords,
But no one heard a syllable; he had forgotten all his words.
He wandered like this countless years until he lost his mind.
It had been his choice to live like this when he still had world and time.