Malcolm Floyd - was born on March 23, 1921 and died on February 12, 1994.
The middle of three children, he was raised in Thurmond, West Virginia where his father worked as a clerk in the National Bank of Thurmond and his mother tended to the family and volunteered with the Presbyterian church.
Like many, his was a life marked by moments of joy and contentment along with tragedy and struggle.
He beamed with pride singing solos in the church, until puberty crushed his voice and his dreams of a musical career.
He blushed when his best friend's sister kissed him on the cheek, and cried when she mocked him in school.
He admired his older brother, until he was abandoned by him in a dark mine shaft.
He screwed up his courage and moved away to Charleston, grew confident with a forklift job, delighted in laughter with new friends and fishing along the Kanawha River.
He loved a woman who loved him back; learned tenderness on his wedding night and grew enchanted as their friendship surpassed their romance.
He was giddy with happiness when they welcomed each of their three children and became disappointed and exhausted by their trials and struggles.
He was sometimes cruel and insensitive, but almost as often reflected on his offenses and made amends.
He served his God and conscience by volunteering with the city's fire squad and church food pantry.
He deeply loved his mother, and wept holding her hand in her final hours.
He felt the pain of an injury, the embarrassment of disability; and gratitude for the charity of aid from neighbors and friends.
He reveled in his first grandchildren, thrilled to bounce them on his knee - then grew depressed when their parents moved them far way.
He winced at the more frequent aches and pains of age, but grew more comfortable in his wrinkled skin.
He knelt crying at his wife's grave and felt the lonely quiet of an empty house.
He watched the sun rise and set from a weathered porch and listened to an old clock and his final days tick away.
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Such is the arc of a life. None of it is true. It's fictional. The point is that, like any, it's a forgotten life. Unless Malcolm kept a journal or his family has any records, no one knows his accomplishments, trials, thoughts or experiences. His light flicked on and off over a brief period and nothing remains but descendants who may or may not even know of his existence, let alone his life's course -- and who will suffer the same anonymous fate themselves.
Our lives are brief flickers that make microscopic marks in our world; remembered briefly by family and friends and then fade into oblivion. Over a generation or two, our existence, with its baggage of cares, struggles and accomplishments are completely forgotten and largely irrelevant.
We like to take some comfort in the belief that we are making some contribution or mark in our world. And for some who can influence events, history or culture, they may have a larger legacy than most of us. But over the longer breadth of time, even most of them are forgotten.
In our own narratives, we often believe our lives have significance in some objective way or that it makes some cosmic mark - or we cling to work or activities to tell ourselves that our lives have meaning. We take comfort in our mythologies - whether civic or spiritual - that elevate our sense of individual dignity and value. But over the millennia, millions of souls have flickered in and out of this world unheralded, and mostly unrecorded, usually in horrific circumstances; either the fodder of wars, victims of disease, disasters or the natural course of life's frailty. Each of them had passions, dreams, families, tragedies, disappointments, pride, as much as any one of us has today. Yet they quickly and undramatically disappear without a trace. There's no record of them or all that they were or meant or wanted to be. It's a fate we all face. The realization of it is shocking and can be paralyzing. Are our lives only the contributions we make to the civilized ant-hill and the legacy or influence on our progeny?
So what are we to feel or do about this condition? We're often advised to enjoy the ride that is our brief lifetime; to be 'mindful' of the flavors of our experience. But beyond those infrequent glimmers of self-aware revelation, there's little we can do to contribute objective meaning. There is no escape from that truth. Time will swallow us, no matter what we do. Mythical Malcolm's tale is something that's long fascinated and motivated me to express and record my existence -- for all the good that ultimately does.
Because in the cosmic sense, even that will not amount to anything. If humanity can even exist on this rock for a million years without killing itself or suffering natural tragedies, it will be consumed by a space disaster or by the sun's dying breaths. Then everyone and everything we've ever achieved as a species and civilization will not have mattered.
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