Date written: January/04

Warnings: Religious blasphemy

Comments: This is actually a true narrative of me. Funny, the philosophical things I think about in the shower. I was suffering a bout of depression during this time, and everything just came out a bit strong.

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." --Voltaire

I lay in my bed, gazing aimlessly about the room. It has a golden glow, almost unearthly, because of the sun that is slowly setting before my window. In this most peaceful hour, the sunlight streams through the blinds to fall gently along the wall, creating symmetrical patterns of light, bending at crazy angles that somehow add to the calm atmosphere. I hear a tune that sounds like a death knell from outside my closed door; the song people play during eulogies to American soldiers lost in war. I step out of my room, thinking to take a shower, but before I make it there, my dad comes to me and says “Your uncle just died.”

There is no sadness in me, no grief and no need to mourn. He was never close to me; related in blood as we may have been, he was never an uncle to me. I feel as if I should be remorseful for these thoughts; they scorn dead men. How am I supposed to feel? Should I show faux melancholy when these is none in me? Shall I grieve when I do not feel the urge to? His spirit has left this world, and he will never be seen or heard ever again. His Catholic wife may pray and pray that he gets into Heaven, but there is no Heaven. All he has left, all he will ever have, is a box of wood and cloth, buried six feet under the decaying earth, alongside hundred of other wretched bodies.

I say “Oh. Okay.” and return on my trip to the shower. My dad leaves in silence.

The water streams through my hair and down my body, as I reflect on my earlier thoughts. Callous, I might be called. Inhuman? Perhaps that‘s taking it a bit too far. I am a strange sort of misanthrope. I do not hate the person, but the species. There are a million reasons to dislike human beings: pollution, prostitution, war, to name a few. Single beings are not worth the hate. There are plenty (I’m sure) of wonderful people, but they are drowned out by the mass of roiling stupidity that is the others. They, therefore, are not important.

Importance to me is knowledge and familiarity. Faceless beings’ deaths don’t bother me. People die all the time, every single day. Who am I to question our material bodies? If someone I knew died, I would show shock, because I would no longer see their face from day to day. If my friends die...I doubt I know how I will react. Certainly, I will grieve, mourn, and miss the person in question, but death is a possibility every day. Crossing the street, you might be run over by a car. Driving a car, you might cause an accident. Cancers, diseases, STDs: harbingers of the eventual destruction of the human body.

I read the lyrics to a song once. It went something like, “There are many here among us who feel life is a joke. And for you we sing this final song; for you there is no hope.” Life's not a joke; it’s a capitalist’s math problem. What is education plus money minus youth? Money. What is a spouse times marriage? Two point five kids and a dog. Money minus youth equals a retirement home.

Life is hopeless. Humans might be marionettes for a greater being, only that there never was, and never will be, a puppeteer. Living things live; they strive to be the best, the strongest, the fastest - the most wealthy and important - only to find themselves alone when they hit their time of death. When they die the question seems apparent; what did they struggle for? Improved conditions for others on Earth? Spiritually ascending to God? Bullshit. People, human beings, want money. They want to live it up, and if it makes people respect them, that’s just an added bonus.

As I step out of the shower and back into my room, I notice the sun has set. The sun sets so hastily these days, because in winter days are short and nights are long, never-ending things that pass all too quickly. The sun runs away from the poisonous night, as it calms and soothes the tired, and torments the depressed and alone. I watch the sun set, the final rays coloring the sky a brilliant orange and pink before disappearing. Forever?

Who cares.