I don’t get out much anymore. I stay inside with the cat. I myself am turning into a cat. I eat like the cat — cold salmon on a small plate; I sleep like the cat — frequently, and in various chairs. There is one major difference between us — she can’t type, therefore wastes no time at it.

The cat looks out the Miami Beach window at the blinding white sky. Pelicans fly in formation — nature’s own squadron, one bird taking the lead, ten others fanned out behind him. Here’s another difference between the cat and I — I know that far-away objects are bigger than they appear; the cat thinks the pelicans are about the size of budgerigars.

I’m running out of time if I intend to write my magnum opus, that one book that will justify my lousy life. The age-old question is: Where to begin? Don’t give me that “at the beginning” routine. I hate stories that start: My earliest memory is when I was four, standing on the running board of my father’s old Ford, blah blah blah.

One should start at the end, if one only knew the end. Well, the end is death, of course, but we need to know the circumstances, the morbid details, the cause, the how and the why and the where — and most chillingly, the when.

If we all knew when, we’d live our lives a lot differently. Either that or we’d blow our brains out now and be done with it. A lot of people hate waiting. They’re impatient. And they especially hate waiting for a corned beef on rye with too much pain on it; or waiting for a lousy bowl of oblivion. The hell with it.

I know a lot of dead people. I don’t call them anymore. I used to dial A for Afterlife. Never an answer. Talking into a dead phone. I dialed O for Oblivion. Busy signal. Lines all tied up.

I shared this fact with the cat. She listened intently but I knew she wasn’t interested. She was thinking of a crunchy pelican the size of a budgerigar.