A couple years ago, after having completely forgotten about the couple of paragraphs I had written, I decided to dig into it and see what I could do with it, because I still liked the idea. And, in a flash of inspiration (if that's what you want to call it) I chugged onward in one go until...I couldn't think of the ending (reminding me of the Groucho/Chico routine from Animal Crackers: "Chico (after a long, monotonous piano routine): I can't think of the ending. Groucho: I can't think of anything else.)" Anyway, as I was re-reading it last weekend, I a decent ending came to me, so now I just have to write it. So, I am going to serialize this in three parts and hopefully it will be done by the time I have to post Part 3.
So, without further ago, I give you:
The Life of Death (Part 1 of 3)To be continued....
I got the call at three that morning. I have no need for Caller ID—I pretty much know who it is, especially when the phone rings at three in the morning. What I was unprepared for was the content of the call.
“Watson, come here, I need you.” He never tired of that one, although there was much less of a playful tone in his voice than there usually is.
“Dave, it’s three in the morning,” I murmured, not quite used to the idea of consciousness just yet.
“Look, it’s really important.”
“Just squish the spider.”
“It’s not a spider this time. It’s…a bit bigger.”
That jolted me awake.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Just get over here.”
“Can you at least give me a hint.”
A shortish pause. “I killed Death.”
“Huh?”
At that point the line went dead--so to speak.
I’m not sure what to make of a line like that. “I killed Death.” What the heck is that supposed to mean? I hoped it wasn’t just another one of his silly existential crises. Dave was my best friend, but he was far too bookish for his own good, and tended toward moroseness, which wasn’t helped by his tendency to read philosophy. I recall once in college he read Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music and was near suicide for weeks. I have no idea why. And Kierkegaard! I had to forcibly wrest The Sickness Unto Death out of his hands and hide it. Unfortunately, he had taken it out of the library, and the overdue fines—when it was finally returned—depressed him even more.
So, at any rate, my assumption when he said “I killed Death,” was that he had read something he shouldn’t have. But, dutiful friend that I am, I immediately threw on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, ran outside and grabbed a cab downtown.
Despite his moroseness, Dave had made some wise economic decisions in his life, despite his having been an ardent socialist in college. Ten years later, he lived in a beautiful brownstone on West 11th Street. He owned no furniture to speak of, save for a futon and walls and walls of bookshelves.
He buzzed me in; well, at least he hadn’t tried to kill himself again.
He was waiting on the second floor and quickly ushered me into the living room. He was white as a sheet and pointed to a black cloak on the floor. A scythe lay next to it. Strangely, a completed game of Scrabble sat nearby.
“What the hell have you been up to?”
“I killed Death.” He seemed completely terrified.
“You wanna take this from the top?”
He lit a cigarette and paced as he struggled to coherently describe the events of the recent past.
“I was reading Nietzsche again, and you know how I get. Anyway, I was consumed with the thought of killing myself, and had actually plotted out my demise.”
“David…”
“No, it gets weirder, believe me. Anyway, as I was doing so, it appeared.”
“‘It.’”
“Death.”
“I see.”
He could tell I wasn’t buying it, but decided to press on anyway. “He materialized in that far corner over there by the window, exactly as you’ve always seen him described. You know, the black hooded cloak, the scythe. Although, he was much shorter than I would have thought. Well under five-foot-five. Anyway, he said he was tired of my playing games with him, that I should either kill myself or not. But that I should do one or the other, because he was getting sick of coming all the way out here only to have to turn around and go home again.”
He paused to light another cigarette. I decided to save any comments until the end.
“I said I can’t do that, I’m plagued with indecision, and sometimes life is bliss, sometimes it’s a vale of tears. You know. So, he said, ‘You want to play games with Death. Okay, let’s play a game.’ I suggested the more traditional chess, but he was keen on Scrabble. Go figure. So the deal was, if Death wins, I die, but if I win, I live. I said that it sounds like I can’t possibly win either way, so I made a suggestion that if I win, Death has to join the living. And, to make a long story only slightly longer, I won. See, he goes for the long, showy words, but the secret is in the smaller words that add up in multiple directions simultaneously.”
“Dave!”
“Oh, right. Anyway, there was a puff of smoke, and his cloak fluttered to the ground, the scythe clanged rather noisily to the floor, and he was gone. In sum, then, I killed Death.”
“But if he’s Death, how can you kill him. It sounds like you made him alive.”
“Well, whatever, whatever! Whatever the opposite of whatever he is, he’s now that.”
I had reduced him to babbling inanity. I’ve never done that to him before. Of course, I don’t know if what he said had happened truly happened, or not, but he certainly was agitated.
“What am I going to do?”
“Look, you’re just having an existential crisis.”
“Well, duh. I’ve killed Death—or whatever—and you tell me it’s just an existential crisis? This goes beyond mere moping.” He looked at me forlornly. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Well, you have to admit, it’s more than a tad preternatural. Look, just get a good night’s rest and I’m sure things will be better in the morning.”
I don't know what kind of advice that was supposed to be; it sounded more than a little insipid. Then again, what advice does one give to a friend who insists that he has killed Death—or whatever?
I gave him a tranquilizer and put him to bed. After he dozed off, I let myself out and grabbed a cab back uptown. It was by now four in the morning, and I had a tennis lesson at nine.
For whatever reason, I didn’t hear from Dave the following day, which made me more than a little nervous. I tried calling him before I left for my lesson, but he either wasn’t in or wasn’t answering. I was kept busy most of the day, but ran into his next door neighbor on Broadway. Apparently, Dave had been seen alive and well, rushing about earlier that day. So at least he was okay.
That evening I had to go up to Albany for a business conference the next morning. It wasn’t until I got back three days later that I noticed things getting a little strange.
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