Somebody inform him that he’s dead

He doesn’t know what the fuss is all about.
Why are there so many people?
Why is everybody wearing black?
Why are they crying?
He shoves his way between the devastated wretches;
Nobody looks at him,
Nobody notices him.
“Maybe they are just too mournful to see.
It must be somebody dear to them—
To some of them.”
He sees his best friend sitting at the corner;
he runs to him to see what’s wrong.
He puts his hand on his shoulder and looks at his face;
He is sobbing silently, his eyes so distant as if dreaming.
He pats on his friend’s shoulder and asks him, “What’s the matter?”
He doesn’t answer.
He asks him again, more gently, more tenderly.
He doesn’t answer.
“Probably it is someone close and he is too shocked to answer.”
The man decides to ask somebody else.
He moves around the room asking everybody
And it appears that he knows almost all of them.
Yet nobody answers him.
At that moment he hears somebody shouting his name;
It’s his mother.
He follows the voice, trying not to run,
Till he sees her.
She’s wailing, all dressed in black,
Surrounded by other women.
He knows every single one of them.
She cries out his name again and again
So he runs to her and drops on his knees beside her.
She doesn’t see him.
He yells out to her, “Mom, what’s wrong? I’m here!”
But she doesn’t hear him.
He feels warm blood burning him from the inside;
Startled, furious and baffled he roars out again and again.
Nobody can hear him.
Nobody can see him.
He collapses in the middle of the room,
And he feels himself falling.
He looks around but is still in the same room.
Minutes later he sees them all going to the cemetery.
He follows them quietly and walks near his friend
Who is still silent and dreaming.
On reaching the final hole, the eternal pit,
A coffin, which he hasn’t seen yet,
Is slowly lowered into the grave.
He watches the despondent faces with ever regretful eyes,
And starts crying.
He takes a look at his mother;
He has never seen her this feeble and anguished.
He can’t take it anymore.
The body is lowered,
The shrieks and laments roar,
The people depart…
And he stands there all alone.
He is looking at his grave and crying his misfortune
When he glances at his stone.
He gets closer to read and there, as expected, is carved,
“Only those who spend their day wide awake
Know that they are asleep at night.”