A Story

So I recently painted over a work for my painting class. In the painting I replaced a songbird on a branch with death. I made death into a "hippie" death. That is I painted death with some sandals that looked like Birkenstocks and the figure wasn't scary enough for my art instructor. She thought that death should be a frightening figure and that I wasn't giving death the proper treatment.

Needless to say I changed death to have more flowing robes and had blood drip from death's hands so that I could improve my grade. (I'm a sellout I'd rather have money than integrity since money can buy some integrity but you can't buy food with artistic vision.)

Anyway the thought came that I should write what I thought about how I view death and So I give you my reader this short story. It should not be taken seriously. I mean it.

A Conversation with Death

By Michael Mills esq.

I had a conversation with death the other day. Most people don't and this makes death lonely from time to time, but death is really a job title. The job is hard to get you have to know someone who knows someone and then there's a really strict vetting process and the pay is terrible. But the perks are great.

You see death is a job title given for a specific type of death i.e. heart attack, or stroke, and there are lots of jobs to make sure that everyone gets a death and guide into the afterlife.

But that isn't what I was talking to death or more specifically my death about. You see my death is something that hasn't happened to anyone else yet and she won't tell me what I die of. It is a rarity for death to be a girl but then I'm a rare type of person and she's a rare type of death.

I guess it's because the job caters to men with a penchant for wearing hoods and walking around with harvesting instruments that not many women apply for the position. Anyway since my death isn't for some time yet. (I think she said 2095) and it won't happen to other people until then she's got time on her hands to kill. She's rather good at that.

So we got to talking about how people act. She's really interested in people watching. And she told me how since she's still a newcomer to the job she gets training and gets to see many people's final hour.

Apparently the longer you live the less surprised you are when it's time to head out. She says that's because you get used to death hanging around for you. Everybody's death likes to check in from time to time apparently because deaths get something of a crush on you and it's hard not to check in on the one you love.

Another thing she said is that in the biz nobody's particularly anxious to get their prospective client. Apparently they get to spend plenty of time with you afterwards and most people need some "life seasoning" to make them tolerable. So you needn't worry about rushing into things.

As a side note death is hot. I'd take her out on the town but she's not much of a party person. If she were to show up she says the party loses life. Her loss.

I did get into an argument once saying that if her company would just let on what happens after we die people would talk death more often instead of avoiding the issue. She had two things to say to that. First that we weren't much for conversation. Which I pointed out that I indeed am much for conversation as she was speaking to me, and Secondly that she didn't have enough rank to change corporate policy which I entirely understand.

We then spoke of celebrating life which I was surprised to find she encouraged. Put this way she said: Life is rare, rarer than you might believe and it lasts for short and long periods all together on earth and without life she'd be out of a job. Apparently she thought and I agreed that when someone dies it's time to celebrate how they were instead of mourning loss. She also said that you should take some time to celebrate life while that person is still alive too.

She didn't think that a strip club was an appropriate place for that celebration though even if there is a policy of letting locals in free. Nor did she think that cupcakes with lots of frosting did the job the right way, "But what about lots of frosting and sprinkles and some punch?" I asked.
Still a no go.

I had a paper to write so she let me go telling me to stop procrastinating. I didn't but papers have a life of their own and this particular one looks to be evil soooo.....

It's hard having a conversation with an anthropomorphic version of your way of coping with your fear of the unknown but she makes up for it by being entirely enlightening.

Trigger

Whenever you watch certain movies or show's you find yourself connecting to them even if it's not entirely your situation. The movie brings up a time when the world that just seems to never let go. As you can see by this marvelous segue I'll be bringing up a movie that does that for me.

The movie is by Stanley Kubrick and the name of it is Full Metal Jacket. Now I never went into a combat situation and I've never seen anyone shoot another person but as most of the movie covers a boot camp situation I can relate at least a bit.

My brother watched it with me and had to ask some questions about military life especially how accurate the movie is to some details. Which reminds me the drill sergeant in it was spot on. Especially seeing as the whole bit was unscripted. We didn't have drill sergeants in the navy however I know boot camp was instilled a fear of petty officers into new recruits.

However as the time went I had one of my best memories ever in that place. At the end of boot camp was a test known as battle stations. There were many events in it most of which was a hell of a lot of fun for me swimming, shooting, seamanship things like rope tying, firefighting, and staying up all night. It sounds like a great summer vacation except for the running and yelling that went with it.

The lead up to this night sucked but "Battle Stations" was fun. Anyway there was a time when people had to make decisions in this exercise. And a few days before the Captain of the Base had made a speech where he talked about leadership, sacrifice and willingness to lay down our lives for our country. It inspired quite a few people.

I thought that I'd seen better speeches made by members of the Elko speech and debate team.

Anyway when the night of battle stations came there was a question asked of everyone there which was basically this: Who hear is ready to give their life for your county. and we were asked to move from one line to another if we would. Everyone but me and our scribe moved over to the other line.

And then the Petty Officer came over and had to ask us why we made this choice as it was rather unusual to see people in the Military not go over to the other line and was about ready, at least as far as I could tell, to bring me back into line as well as our scribe. And so when asked I gave that great answer that makes me proud of me, and of my memory that allowed me to think of what I value which is great movie lines. and I said I didn't join to die for my country, I joined to make the other bastard die for his. This made the petty officer smile. And he promptly told the other line that they had all died. (Dieing was the penalty major mistakes that night) and that we are supposed to be the smartest military in the world and that to think on our feet and be able to work on our own to complete a mission was quite necessary.

I'm fairly sure that he didn't plan on saying this but I think that this particular man was smart enough to turn a good answer to his way of working. Anyway the scribe who stood next to me didn't have my knowledge of movie lines and had to respond that he joined for the same reason as me. He was promptly made fun of for joining only for college benefits. Poor guy, the snappy line quota was taken for the day.

There were some sullen faces in the other line who complained of being confused by the speech earlier that week which made that bit of that night really good. I love sore losers when I get to be the classy winner. It makes me feel so good. Granted I'm not being classy here but nobody there is reading this now so I get to lord it over nobody YES!

Bringing things back to movie. I'm not a big fan of war. Lets try and figure out how to not have war especially if we can do it without bad protests that don't work. I just remembered the protesters who showed up at funerals. ugh. Seeing as I've brought you down from a blogger's high I can now leave you.