Humoresque
Sometimes I see people in old movies
and I’m jealous that they’re surely dead by now.
They did it. They made it through.
Whatever was going to happen to them happened.
It either killed them or it didn’t. Eventually it did.
The two middle-aged music instructors,
just now entering a classroom in a movie from 1946 —
they’ve been gone for decades.
They died before the internet, before smart phones,
before social media, before the climate catastrophe.
Now sure, they died before a lot of good stuff, too.
The world getting better for people who looked different
than every single cast member in this film, for instance.
But the point is they just don’t have to worry about it anymore.
And I still do.
/ / /
6 January 2026
Charlottesville VA
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