Outkast

The 13th Floor

“Something’s gotta change

Sounds of laughter and happiness turn my teardrops to rain

Been bearing this burden for too many of my days

Looks like breezes of Autumn done finally blew my way

Like memories of yesterday…”

-“13th Floor/Growing Old”

Play this song- and nothing else- at my funeral. Please and thank you.

When I think about death, the first thing that comes to mind is that creepy ass song the choir was singing at the beginning of “Tha Crossroads” video. I don’t know what age normal, well-adjusted people come to terms with their own mortality- I would guess sometime after you wake up and realize your body doesn’t work and your face looks like a soggy pork chop- but I remember becoming very aware of my own death right after that video. Like IMMEDIATELY after seeing that video. Since that point, I oftentimes think about how and when I may die. And it freaks people the HELL out.

We’re not talking about my actual death today, though (January 1, 2026. Shot. Vegas Strip. Preferably over something asinine as hell). It’s just crazy to have discussions with other people and they, in large part, tend to deflect any talk regarding their deaths. It’s like the ‘I Don’t See Color’ argument for your inevitable reaaaaally long nap, but whatever.

Death is one thing; what you’re leaving behind is another. And all too often, we see people leaving behind children that aren’t even old enough to fully understand the concept of death, much less process it. It’s also stealing away a significant piece of their innocence long before the world, and life in general, gets its chance. And when I compare that to my life as a 29 year-old man with no kids, I get so disheartened by my next thought: I’m going to have to try so much harder to not die if I have a child.

Don’t misinterpret “not trying my hardest to not die” as “I’m determined to end it all” because that is simply not true. Being alive is great; I just don’t want to have to try insanely hard to do it, though. As long as I can play video games and laugh at people calling Internet strangers ‘fatherless’ on Twitter, I’m good. I might start to lose that lust for life the day my body gives out and I can’t play basketball or hit the batting cages, but hopefully I have time. If I start shitting on myself and have to be wheeled around with a weak ass shawl covering my bony legs, then I’ll know I never truly had any friends because somebody should have locked me in their garage and turned the car on like ten years prior. I heard getting old is glorious or whatever, buuuuuut…that’s really not my thing. I’ll be cool if I accidentally break my whole neck in a freak accident involving a belt, two Brazilian hand models, four candles and a cheese grater at like 55. I was going somewhere with this at one point…

Oh, yeah. Kids force you to try harder to stay alive. That’s a lot of responsibility and pressure, dude. That means I’d have to start watching my sodium intake, start going to doctors that actually speak English, and stop dressing like an approachable drug dealer. No more using Old Bay like a dipping sauce. No more Slim Jims and orange soda for breakfast. No more raw shrimp and chicken seasoning for snacks. No more going to bars where there’s a very real possibility I might get hit over the head with an empty Scotch tumbler (I’m from D.C.; even the thugs are bourgeois now). So basically I have to give up everything I love. So yeah, I might not die as soon, but damnit I apparently won’t be dying happy, either.

I know at this point it sounds like I’m complaining, which is convenient because that is EXACTLY WHAT I’M DOING. I fear the day I no longer have the option to take a bunch of Ketamine and drive down sidewalks at 3am with no headlights on. Not something I’ve done before but hey…never know what I’ll be interested in in my 30s. Never say never, amiright? But for all my complaining, I say that to say this: I, and most of you, will gladly make that sacrifice each and every time. It would be a very nominal thing to do, in fact. It’s not about us living for others; it’s about staying alive for others. I live for me; I’m selfish that way. But to want to be around just to see pieces of you grow and experience life is so instinctive and innate, it kind of makes me believe that despite so, so, SO many acts of hatred we have witnessed as of late, most people are intrinsically good and just. I just want to be able to look in my child’s eyes and tell him or her that I’m trying my hardest to stay alive. I also want to look a woman in the eye and promise her I’ll never die right before we have sex like that scene in Team America so…I mean…take my words with the grain of salt I guess I might have to stop eating one day.

I only hope my friends aren’t assholes; they better wait until I’m dead to start dying themselves. How selfish would it be to make me feel bad for missing your funerals, man? Have some class. A.J. Armstrong is the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities

Obstructed

Little Andre knew there was something more. Rather, he felt there was. He had no idea what caused these thoughts to bounce around in his dreams; his intuition oftentimes caused him to lose sleep. On those nights, he would just stare out into the Southwest Atlanta night, beyond the terrace sprawling below him and past the apartment buildings stretching around him. Every now and again, a young boy would enter his frame of focus, but the image was always a blip of faint light that barely registered. This feeling would cut through all the distracting images flowing into his room and deafened the noises that accompanied them. Andre had it all figured out; he just didn’t know it yet.

Sasha took it all in. Everything competed for her attention and she enjoyed walking amongst the commotion. Her foundation was in this concrete jungle. Life began here and Sasha never figured- nor was she taught- that it could end elsewhere. These few blocks were comforting and provided a pleasant shroud of ignorance.

Sasha loved Andre because he was tall and funny. He liked to talk about things she didn’t quite understand, but she enjoyed the way he said them. They would sit out in the terrace and he would sometimes just sit there with an odd look on his face. Sometimes he would look directly at Sasha and she would look down as if she was searching for an answer to a question. She never really knew what his eyes wanted to know and maybe she should have felt uncomfortable, but she never did. She would just search and, for a few seconds, his gaze silenced the world.

Andre loved Sasha but felt an unexplainable sadness when he thought about her. He loved her spirit and vigor, but wished she could truly take it all in. He never understood how to live in the moment and was taken by Sasha’s ability to do so. She always seemed in such a rush to go nowhere, though. That’s why his favorite memories of her were always in that terrace; it was as close to subdued Sasha would ever seem to be. It was in those moments Andre could steal a few prolonged glances into her eyes. They were beautiful and busy and resigned to never leaving these few blocks. He knew growing apart was inevitable; he just hated that he couldn’t do a thing about it.

One particularly starry night, he sat quietly on a bench staring beyond them while she simply glanced in passing while resting in the only place in the world that mattered. The distance between them was never as abundantly clear than when Andre turned and asked Sasha what she wanted out of life.

“Baby girl, you ever think about what you wanna do when you get grown?”

“What you mean?”

“Just like…what you wanna be when you grow up?”

“…Alive.”

Andre looked directly into those busy eyes, hoping she was only downplaying her plans. It broke his heart to see that she wasn’t. He cast his stare back above the buildings that surrounded them both…

Time went on. They got grown. Andre returned home only to find Little Sasha was gone; her mama said she was ‘with some nigga that be treating her wrong’. It was saddening but not the least bit surprising. That summertime exchange on the bench all those years back had forced him to stop denying what he already knew. All the noises and blips of faint light that had harmlessly danced about Andre’s room swallowed Sasha whole long before she had realized it.

That bench is still in the middle of that terrace and whenever Andre comes to visit, he sits and thinks about Sasha. He also thinks about how those stars seemed to pull him away from his environment, even if only in his mind for a few detached moments. That was usually followed by the tinges of sorrow for those that could never find escape in them and preferred to remain distracted by their realities. However, like Sasha, these thoughts were relegated to the terrace and those buildings. They were left to linger as Andre stood up and walked off into that beautiful unknown.

A.J. Armstrong is the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities