2.11 Creative Death

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11. Creative Dying

Ali picks up her drink. “To our long loving lives.”

   “And good creative dying,” Kimura adds, evoking horror on her face.       “Creative dying?” What in my Atheist Goddess’s sacred blue name izzat?”

   His head back against the rest part of the ultra comfortable seat, Kimura gazes at his vision of Aryan loveliness across their cozy table for two. “Yes, Ali-san! Death! What does it mean? Unimaginable blankness! The closest thing is dreamless sleep, which if you try to think what it was like last, you get a timeless nothing between head on pillow and awaking; except with death it is head on pillow and out, forever.”

   “You don’t believe in reincarnation?”

   “You can throw in heaven and hell, or any other vision of continuance,” he says; then, realizing the discussion is right for cannabis, he pulls out his gold case, flips it open.

   “Thanks Kim, don’t mind if I do, and one for you too.” She puts the two white, grass-packed cylinders to her lips as Kimura sparks his lighter and sets the tips glowing. She returns one to him and they sit back to a first deep drag.

   “Heaven, hell, reincarnation! It is all the same. No one but the city idiot believes in that anymore. In all recorded history, there is not one report of communication with the dead. No one who dies is ever heard from again except in séances that Houdini and others showed to be pure poppycock. And think how self serving such a belief in continuance after death is. Obviously it is the wish fulfillment that is the flip side of everyone’s horror of dying. That alone ought to make one realize how untrue it is. And if these arguments do not convince one, anatomy and physiology have put to death the afterlife forever. After you die, who can deny that the body has dust as its destiny? So believers in continuance after death are left with the concept of soul, a bodyless continuation of one’s mind. But neurophysiologists have shown that mind resides in the neural networks of the brain which are made of fat and salts, and involve electric current generated in the neurons. And when the brain ends, so too does the matter and electricity that generate consciousness.”

   Ali sighs. “Oh Kim! Everybody knows that argument and still we have loads of folks who believe in continuance after death.”

   Kimura gives his Cheshire cat smile. “What they really are saying is: ‘I am terrified of not believing.’ It proves my point. ‘Denial’ is the word for such reaction to an overwhelmingly terrifying truth. Even the Pope, if you gave him truth serum, will answer ‘No’ to ‘Do you believe in continuance after death under the name 'soul' and in heaven or hell?’”

   “You forget purgatory, Kim.” Ali smokes her marijuana and feels timeless.

   “Well, I want to give the Pope an out.”

   “The marijuana is giving you a sense of humor, Kim. But say on, MacDuff!”

   Kimura takes a deep drag then allows the cannabis exhalation smoke wisps to rise from his slightly opened lips to his nostrils where he sucks them in for a second circulation through the lungs. “Early-on we all learn that people die, we come to know that death must happen universally. But deep in our belief system we do not put it together with: All humans must die. I am a human. Ergo …”

   “That’s where religion comes in don’t it?”

   Kimura is finished with religion. “The fact that your, my or the other fellow’s death all have a statistical probability of one point oh, oh, oh is of greatest practical importance to everyone alive. It is the one case where we can predict our own future with certainty.  And by ignoring or denying it we throw away a grand opportunity to do something of value for ourselves, for others, and, rarely, for the world.”

   “It sounds grand, Kim,” says Ali, downing her drink and taking a deep drag on the smoked down fag, “but also grandiose, dontchyathink? Shall I blame it on your youth or the MaryJane here?” She laughs and holds out her hand for more.

   He opens his gold case and leaves it open on the table. “You know, Nietzsche said it best.” He reaches for his wallet and pulls out a typewritten paper. Ali grabs it and reads.

Natural death is death under contemptible conditions. It is involuntary death at the wrong time, a coward’s death …. We should desire a different kind of death – voluntary, conscious, not accidental or by surprise… . When a man does away with himself he does the noblest thing in the world. By doing it he almost proves his right to live.

For a moment she remains quiet with paper in hand. Then she hands it back to Kimura who replaces it in his wallet. Still with no word she takes another marijuana and accepts his flicked light. Deeply dragging on it, she sits back and looks straight into him across the table. “Heavy, heavy, heavy! Yeah, I get it. But for a gal like me it’s almost too, too – the French have a word for it – trop – too much. I just like to think of death like a Hollywood ending; y’know, Jimmy Cagney or someone saying ‘I’m goin’ but before dat, jes a few last words … .’” She lapses into silence and Kimura continues his thought.

   “The reality is that often we cannot control our dying and death – a stroke, a heart attack, an accident in pink of life. And death per se is not really the problem. No, the problem is how we manage our dying once we know our time is up. Why do you think jumping from heights is favored?” He asks with rhetorical flourish almost knocking over Ali’s drink, which she rescues by a quick grab.

   She interrupts his ready rhetorical question’s answer with a comment. “It certainly an’t pretty on the street. When I lived in The Bronx, as I was reading at the window, an old guy on the 6^th floor straight above my 1^st floor jumped. I heard him splat on the street and looked down." She makes a sound of disgust, "Yech! Brain and blood, big gobs of it all over the pavement.”

   “Jumping is most chosen because death is sudden and certain.”

   “That suggests a lot of persons follow Ole Nietzsche in choosing a quick, certain end.”

   Kimura explains: “Nietzsche’s contemptible condition of natural death refers to unplanned, un-sudden death, the usual death doctors see in practice. Most persons when they find they are mortally ill spend the remaining weeks or months or years unhappily, expensively, and ineffectually trying to cure the incurable, like Don Quixote charging at the windmills.”

   “Yeah, that was a great literary scene!” Ali now is pleasantly stoned.

   He presses the button for 3^rd round of drinks and continues. “In trying to avoid the unavoidable: the dying person disturbs family and friends, and gives bad lesson for children, by wasting money and precious time that would better be used for Endgame.”

   “Hey, what a play and you just told the title!” Ali loves Broadway. “But the subject’s a downer. Who’d pay money to see dying characters go dead?”

   Kimura continues. “Dying persons can be the ultimate in selfishness. Think of the wife who pledges her husband to eternal faithfulness. What she ought to be doing is finding him a good new wife.”

   “Replacement wife! Hey, I like it.”

   “The person who knows the limit of his life and accepts it and gets on with living - that one - becomes a potential superman who may rise above the moral code because he no longer fears its final pronouncement. His ending becomes the ultimate game, which he may plan with care and execute with precision.”

   Ali puts her right index finger between upper lip and nostrils to make like a mustache, pulls a lock of hair down over her brow to give the Adolph Hitler look and, right forearm bent up with palm facing him, executes the famous Heil!
  “That certainly is Nietzsche with N for Nazi!”
  They are sitting in a curtained compartment. Ali stops her charade and looks to see if anyone is nearby. “Hey Kim, don't talk so loud! "It's potent stuff. Y’oughta know, y’Jap you! If this were Tokyo, the thought police would arrest you for that. Can you imagine what the world would be like if a lot a nutty types took t’heart what you just said? Gee, I can see someone hi-jackin’ a plane over New York and crashin’ it into the Empire State Building, as his creative death, or some kook totin’ a gun and killin’ a lot a people and then himself to make his purple point. So just shut up and …” she giggles at her obscene allusion.

Several hours later the Clipper comes down for landing on the smooth waters of Apra Harbor, Agana Guam.
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