I think I died and gone to heaven. How else can you explain all these gorgeous women everywhere? It could, however, be that I died and just stayed here, in Manhattan. The giveaway is of course women’s total lack of interest. They look through me, as if I am transparent, which is a characteristic of ghosts, so I’ve heard. No matter how intently I stare at them they would not budge. If their stare was in my direction, it stayed there. If they were scanning their options not one of them ever stopped on my eyes. However this tall, blond, smartly dressed professional, was looking through my eyes. I quickly turned and saw behind me an ad for Aruba – One Happy Island. I can see that. I want to go to Aruba too, perhaps with this very blond. I turned back, expecting to meet her smile, but she was already into her iPhone, perhaps searching for cheap flights. She didn’t look like she needed cheap flights though. She did wear a humongous diamond on her engagement finger, she could always sell it and buy the fucking island. Her husband would not mind, as long as she doesn’t give him shit on what he was doing at work until 2 in the morning. She could enjoy Aruba all for herself, and perhaps meet a local fisherman and tell him about the subway ad and this fellow who was blocking it while smoking a fat one on his boat butt naked, on a full moon summer midnight. I looked at her again, or perhaps never stopped looking at her. She has the same shy though contemptuous smile my friend has. The one I keep trying to get love from but always seem too cool for me. of course even for people who are fully alive, a tall blond professional who has married rich is not a low hanging fruit, and I have yet to find out whether I am alive or not. I think I am going to give up, just in time for Union Square.

Never in my life have I had coffee at The Coffee Shop. This was no exception. -Vodka tonic with extra lime please, I asked in a confident voice the drop dead female bartender who seemed to wear nothing but a black buttoned down shirt. - this is the only cocktail I can drink and still feel a man. or at least claim to be one. Not sure how long I have sat there, nor how many Vodka tonicas I have had, as time plays tricks on you when you’re dead, and even when you think you are dead, or simply waiting for it, like a normal person. But at some point I raised my head to her and said in a surprisingly controlled voice - I am happy and grateful. not only I have been sitting here enjoying your beauty, I now see you twice, which is twice the enjoyment. She either didn’t hear me or already knew the joke, but one thing bothered me. I did receive my drinks, or so I thought. - Why is it important? I heard myself asking myself and didn’t hear the answer, perhaps because there is none. Every now and then I do ask myself whether I am alive or adead. –For example, take this blond from the subway ride a few hours ago, I told myself while peeing and looking at myself looking at myself in the mirror, let’s say I’m alive, do I stand a chance with her? How so? What can I do as a living being with her that I can’t do dead like me? And say I am dead, what am I missing? She’s too demanding. She will want me to be alert, and funny, interesting and interested, and then she will probably want me to hold more than 10 minutes in bed. When I’m dead I can imagine myself doing all that, what’s left to imagine when you’re alive? If you CAN imagine it, you’re immediately filled with guilt, knowing that you only live some of you life, part of it, and not the cool part. If you CAN’T imagine it, you’re probably dead anyway. Looking at myself in the mirror I was struck by my beauty and attractiveness. I smiled to myself with this self assertion of a prince who is kind to his people though he knows quite well how superior he is to all that. I finished my business and stumbled my way back to my stool. I felt my head spin and the bartender had an identical twin again. I smiled to her too. She looked at me? Her doppelganger was busying over my next drink and she looked, and smiled at me! Could it be? I checked behind me and asked her if she knew in what way I was lucky. - I am luckier than you because you only see one of me, but I see two of yous. She didn’t even smile. I could never quite get people to get my jokes though my insults were always accepted with the maximum effect. - you know what, if you don’t laugh at my jests, perhaps you’d laugh at this joke- I met my brother today, and told him I am going to call my dog Smith, so he said he has a friend with a wooden leg named Smith. So I said ‘really? What’s the name of his other leg’. She didn’t move a single muscle in her face when she said -I saw that movie when I was 6. I got the joke when I was 7. And went about her business. I was just leaving tip on the bar when the tall blond came in and sat on the stool next to me, looking at me through the mirror behind the bottles, she asked -do you want to come upstairs and have wild sex with me? I live right above the place. - Me too, I said. And disappeared.