by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

In his movie the Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman personifies death, Having Max von Sydow as a Swedish knight chat and play chess throughout the story with the white-faced, black-shrouded Grim Reaper.

The game, of course, is intended as a metaphor for life. But, to my way of thinking, it fails in that regard for the same reason that economists are famously bad at predicting the economy.

People's buying patterns are not a rational process; buying is emotional, as is the rest of life. We are motivated by impulse, not calculation, inventing, after the fact, rationalizations for our choices and actions.

Personified or not, Death has been making regular visits to the block on which I live up here in colonia Insurgentes. Since I moved in 18 months ago, in houses literally just a stone's throw from mine, five persons have died. First went Catalino, the man who gave me the key to his nursery/garden across the street. Then, in chillingly close proximity to each other, the woman across the street lost first her husband and then her son.

Our neighborhood's penultimate departure was that of a debilitated old man, whom I would greet as he sat in the sunshine in his doorway. This, as I walked by, pushing my bicycle uphill because I am tired after a long ride, and because cobblestones are maximally annoying on a bicycle at very low speed.

Just last week, right in front of that very doorway, there were dozens of people gathered underneath and around a make-shift shelter, the free-standing awning set up in the street for the traditional death vigil, the Mexican wake.

I couldn't have ridden through that gathering if I had been rude enough to try, with everyone sitting at folding tables on folding chairs or standing and leaning against cars. As it was, I walked my bicycle down the hill to pay my respects.

Identifying the deceased's nearest of kin, a son about 40-years-old, I paid my condolences, remarking how his father had always returned my greeting with a big smile. Then, I offered a few philosophical thoughts on life and death, managing to elicit some laughter from the crowd while doing so, because, really, what is as funny as death?

Leave them laughing being good advice, refusing several offers to join them in their meal, and already being on the downside of the assembly, I straddled my bicycle and rode away. Fifteen minutes later, on my way back from the store, so as not to disturb the assembly again, I took a longer way home, slowly pedalling back up the hill, bumping my way up the very irregular cobbles of the next street over.

Not very long ago, I had a discussion, a debate really, regarding Mexicans' attitude towards hard labor with the author of an article I was about to publish. In the article, the author, unused to hard labor himself, lauded the redeeming quality of working hard. I disagreed with glorifying the back-breaking toil of carrying bricks and breaking concrete all day: "Anyone with any talent or education finds another way to make money. Up north we have machines to do that."

The insults and injuries we do to our bodies come back to haunt us as we age. Speaking with the family of the man who used to sit in his doorway and smile, I was shocked to learn that the debilitated "old" man was not five years my senior.

Moving on to the fifth and most recent departure: I knew that one of my neighbors had a drinking problem, the adult son of the extended family who lives next door, with one empty lot between us. This is only because ten days ago I saw him outside and strolled over to say hello. He looked terrible, and complained that the night before, while drunk, he had lost his phone and wallet. Five days later when we spoke again, he looked even worse, as Dad would say, "like death warmed over." Five days later, he was dead.

That is, just yesterday morning, rising from bed and opening the curtains, I saw a big, new, boxy Cruz Roja ambulance positioned right below in the street, in front of the empty lot. Later, coming back from Catalino's garden where I do my yoga, I asked my neighbors, in front of their house, the patriarch, matriarch and another of their adult sons, what had happened. The alcoholic had collapsed and, vomiting blood, had been taken away. His brother assured me, however medically implausible, that he was puking up his liver.

Then, yesterday mid-afternoon, alerted by the sound of hollow metal poles bouncing against cobblestones, I looked out and saw a truck parked in the middle of the street, unloading folding tables and chairs and a free-standing awning. Later, just before sunset, as I was leaving on my bicycle to go buy onions and papaya, with dozens of family members already assembled, I stopped and paid my condolences, particularly to his father and mother, "Lo siento por tu perdida. La pinche vida" (I'm sorry for your loss. Fucking life). They nodded along with both sentiments. Taking note of the extended family, I rode away again, again downhill, again leaving behind a little laughter and philosophy. Comedy and tragedy are after all kissing cousins.

This morning at 8:30, when I looked out the window, almost a dozen members of the extended family were milling about outside. (Had they been up all night?) An hour later, over a dozen more had joined them. (Where had they all slept?). An hour later, after eating breakfast, they packed into the back of my neighbors' red pickup truck and drove off. Now the awning is empty, as lifeless as my alcoholic neighbor.

I woke this morning from a profound, not unpleasant dream. In it I was receiving news and reminiscing about an old friend, who in life is probably already dead (one loses touch). Over a cup of tea and some slices of papaya I've been working on this article. But, excuse me, now I can see Bergman's white-faced Death, with white scythe and black hood, standing all alone just aside of the awning in the street below. He's rather insistently beckoning up to me. We are playing chess, and it seems that it's my move.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, public internet, building community, strengthening the local economy. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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