I muse over what death, not dying, is like. What an abomination it would be to go on after death. Heaven and hell are twin disasters. I don’t want eternal constructs. So, I assume death is like 4 a.m. last night; I was out, not aware, not knowing, gone, zonked, dreamless. i experience death each night — and it is chilling to say so, not to be, no touch, not be awake or aware, but like a stone, a car in a parking spot, a spoon, to be inanimate. Assuming that the former do not have awareness, that is what I think death is.
Ironically there are those among us who are dead in life right now and there really is little difference between what they do in their daily lives and what they are when they sleep. It is hard to imagine my dear ones, now lost and deceased, in such a state, but if they are, the very unknowingness of life and self is cold comfort to me. They don’t remember. They are off, they are gone. Not to remember is to be dead; Alzheimer’s is the metaphor.
As we are awake the very idea of 4 a.m. as death is unnerving. If there is not one iota of recall, I can “live,” I can “die” to it. Last night at 4 a.m. who I was, was gone, long departed. No wonder people become amnesiacs — unconscious fears; and those who take sleeping potions, experimenters with suicide through sleep. If I will become inanimate matter, so be it. I sometimes feel as if I came from stone or carbon or elsewhere, foreign to any idea of it, beyond conceptualization and that I will return to such a state again.
So, by my definition, life is a spark between two poles, both without charge. I always thought it might be fun to be aberrant, and so I am an errant charge, unplanned for, who has several decades to make sense out of this folly, and then off with his head. It goes beyond cruelty and malice; it is nature’s unheard aria, a solo sung by no one. Heard by no one, I feel closer to a virus than I do to my fellow man. At least the virus is closer organically to atoms or quarks, to what matters, no pun intended, than a human being who, like topsy, has grown over-large.
This morning Mt. lemmon was covered in a haze that did not burn off until noon or so; for a while it appeared as if the surrounding ridges were in a shroud made of smoke. Smoke spots could be seen coming down the western slopes of the Catalinas as if set by Indians to send smoke signals. After having recently read Krakatoa of late, I associated to the image of an oncoming volcanic upheaval. One cannot imagine what such an explosive outburst that might be — beyond comprehension. A smell of roasting wood was in the air here and there as I drove by; it came into the car.
I’ve had a stressful day dealing with workmen who are either flip or disorganized, one hand not knowing what the other is doing. Over the cell phone I almost told a young man that he should change his name to Pontius Pilate, for he continually failed to take responsibility for his inability to perform a few straightforward tasks. The local Wells Fargo bank held up giving me a line of credit because they needed evidence that I existed in my new home, regardless of my credit cards and utility bills that I paid for the past 12 months. Banks are whores. I feel as I grump into old age that we are a nation of morons. People tend not to take responsibility not only for their own actions but for whom they are. Besides being a nation of sheep, we bleat ignorance.
Everybody is escaping being held responsible for what they are and what they do. At times today I felt like nailing each finger to the floor with a spike, crucifying the hand as a transfigural symbol, of not getting things done. Line up 10 individuals and metaphorically shove them into one another and what you have are imploding shadows, reflections without substance.
