Granted, it's very dramatic and a great way to end a Western, but in reality you are stuck starring directly into the sun. What is so great about riding off into the sunset anyway? Is having a sense of accomplishment followed by an overbearing desire to travel due West? Yes, I know its a metaphor for kicking the bucket but I'm the type of guy that wears sunglasses more days than most people wear pants, I don't appreciate the whole "Walk into the Light" deal; I have sensitive eyes.
Besides, walking away towards the horizon has been done to death. Every other movie has a character gently disappear in a glimmer of light never to return to the land of the living except to do arts and crafts or take a most bogus journey. Where's the creativity? Where's the original idea of what it's like after you realize that packing a parachute is best left in the hands of professionals? Not many people have near-death experiences, and to rely on such a small number of accounts is not scientifically secure in determining the accuracy of such stories. It is only right to weigh out other viable options.
Perhaps you simply snap back into life, like a long blink. Reincarnation. One of those Asian religions was big on it. Everyone has found themselves watching a Discovery Channel documentary, turned to their roommate and mumbled something about how cool it would be to be a penguin. Maybe there's even an evolution to reincarnation. First, starting off as a simple life form, such as bacteria or an amoeba, and gradually working your way up to the Crezzlantians, our future Reptilian Overloads. With each successful jump you take a bit of your past with you, so the greasy kid from high school was part slug, your track star friend came from gazelle linage, and your lazy, good-for-nothing brother used to be moss. For me, I think there are a few traits which stand out, leadership, status, symbolism. That's why I'm confident I came from a long line of bald eagles.
Maybe nothing happens. If that's true then you would want to catch people by surprise, so they always remember you. There are five stages of lose, drifting slowly away and having people come to accept your death before you're gone is no way to check out. You want them to be sidelined by the news. If people do not have to call out of work to grieve you have not died horrifically enough. It is completely out of your hands, but if you have to go, you want it to be such an event that whenever you come up in conversation someone feels compelled to bring up how you died.
Friend #1: Hey, remember in college when Dave and I won that Air-Band Competition?
Friend #2: Yea, that was awesome... I can't believe he drown in a vat of marshmallow at the Hershey plant while trying to save those orphans from the fire started when the careless bus drive threw his cigarette into the bushes near the exhaust vent igniting the entire factory ablaze. Dave, being the lone man brave enough to go in after them, saved 122 lives that day. At least he died in deliciousness.
On the other hand, perhaps those people were right and everything you've seen in the movies is accurate. But when are movies ever accurate? When have you had the right words to say to the girl at the right time? When have you rolled a car seven times and not break your sunglasses? And when has your ragtag group of friends ever beat the pretty, popular kids at anything? Never, because movies make things more glamorous. So instead of a bright light at the end of the tunnel, you're actually sitting in a smelly subway station squashed next to a guy having an animated conversation with hand gestures on his blue tooth and another guy with an actual blue tooth with the nickname Smiley, and that sound of God is really the broken, barely audible speaker of the subway operator. Did they say 6th or 66th Street... why's it so hot?
Death makes a lot of people uneasy with due cause because we are unsure what comes after it. All of these options are as viable as the next and eventually everyone will have a first hand experience with the subject, unless there's a zombie holocaust. It's a perfectly reasonable option not a lot of people give credit too. All I'm saying is most people don't come back from the dead and try and eat your brains.
But it had to happen once to make people all paranoid.
No comments:
Post a Comment