Killing Death
by Michael LaRocca (c) 1987
Have you heard the tale of that brave warrior who, while lying on the
battlefield, decided that he did not want to die?
As he felt his own hot blood trickling through his fingers, he thought it
grossly unfair that his life should end. Most men die with quiet resignation,
but others go down with hatred in their eyes and a curse on their lips. This
brave warrior belonged to the latter breed. Have you not heard of him?
"Beyond this gate lies the end of your suffering."
"And what if I do not want it to end?"
"Then I shall wait."
Thus did Death wait patiently as our hero raised up his rifle, stabbed its
bayonet into the ground, and slowly lifted himself to his feet. The eternally
patient Death looked on emotionlessly.
Did you know that a human being has roughly 30 feet of intestines coiled up
within his body? So it was that our hero reached into his own bowels and pulled
them out. He threw them around Death's arms and bound him so that he could not
escape. Then our hero picked up Death's sickle and chopped off his evil head.
If you kill a person or an animal, it dies. (Actually, I hear you saying, a
person is an animal. No matter.) But if you kill Death, then all will live.
To think that, never again, must the spark of a human life be extinguished.
Could anything be better than that?
Even now, do you not hear the screams of the dying? The people in the cancer
wards with the stench of rotting guts? The twisted figures in the burning
automobiles? The lovers who leap from the cliffs and crawl back up in agony to
leap again?
Do you not hear the cries of the elderly who lie paralysed? The policeman with
the bullet lodged in the grotesque remains of his skull? The deformed foetus
and its dying mother? Do you not hear the screams of the man in the electric
chair, or the man on the cross, or our brave hero himself?
For now that there is no Death, but only eternal life, there can be no end to
their suffering. Now they crave an end to life above all else, but still it
will not come.
Even now, are you not screaming with them?
