My Brother, Dead for Five Years, Receives Two Exclusive Fitness Club Offers After the First of the Year

So it’s true . . . even the formerly respiring
and the brazenly perished can stand to improve.
They claim one can be better than ever
in just a few short visits, but for my brother
this will require some miraculous regeneration
on the order of the Tamagotchi eggs.
Isn’t anything possible in the era of
the video game? Or maybe it’s the era of
the perpetually new you — as reinvented
by the purveyors of advertising who can
track one’s progress through one’s purchase
history. So here we are solidly stuck in
the history of all purchases, my brother’s
profile mingling with all the others who are
ambitious. These kinds of folks are easily
herded according to their interests. They
quickly understand they should do as they
are told. Orange Theory commands my brother
to keep burning even though he was neatly
cremated years ago. California Family Fitness
seems like it’s a land of big smiles and
raised dumbbells. It’s where water is sprayed
on a body and they call it hydromassage.
It’s where one can go to meet one’s wellness
goals. But I want to know where the unwell
go after the hospitals are full. I want to
hang out with the midwives of blame
and contempt, where everyone agrees
not even death can stop commerce.
Long after the sun has supernovaed
all of us will find ourselves on some
bulk mail list somewhere,
radiating out beyond the guardrails
at the overlook to oblivion.