"When I died, there was no one around to see it. I died all alone. It's fine. Some people think it's a tragedy to die all alone, with no one around to see it. My high-school boyfriend wanted to marry me, because he thought the most important thing to have in life was a witness. To marry your high-school girlfriend, and have her with you all through life---that is a lot of witnessing. Everything important would be witnessed by one woman. I didn't like his idea of what a wife was for---someone to just hang around and watch your life unfold. But I understand him better now. It is no small thing to have someone who loves you see your life, and discuss it with you every night.
Instead of marrying him, I married no one. We broke up. I lived alone. I had no children. I was the only witness to my life, while he found a woman to marry, then had a child using fertility. Her family origins is large and lives near them---same with his family of origin. I visited them one time, and at his birthday dinner there were thirty relatives and close friends, including their only child. We were at the home of his wife's parents, in the small coastal town where they were building lives. He got exactly what he wanted. He has thirty reliable witnesses. Even if half of them die or move away or come to hate him, he still has fifteen. When he dies, he will be surrounded by a loving family, who will remember when he still had hair. Who will remember every night that he came home stinking drunk and yelling. Who will remember his every failure, and love him in spite of it all. When all his witnesses die, his life will be over. When his son is dead, and his son's wife is dead, and the children of his son are also dead, the life of my first boyfriend will be through."
From the May 11, 2015, issue's fiction story in The New Yorker titled "My Life is a Joke," by Sheila Heti.
What a great start to a short story.
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