but do you know it, do you really know it? Do
you think about it? Do you lie awake at night, dark all around you, lis-
tening to the child breathing in the next room, that soft in-out, that gen-
tle sighing, and know that the child is already in the ground, already
cold, do you know that his hands will grow to be like ice and will cease
to move, and that you will hold his hand and you will mourn and cry
but you will not be able to open those fingers, those fingers that held
yours in that grip that is so strong, somehow, the grip of a child who has
no fear, no ability to see life for what it is, for isn’t fear born into us the
very moment we understand? Doesn’t the fear come in the very mo-
ment, the very moment you see life, you look around you, you notice the
world outside, the world of foreign things, the not-you things, and the
fear creeps into you when you realize that this shell around you, this
pink and breathing thing, offers no protection from even a needle, a
rock, an broken piece of glass, which is only sand, in that very second of
knowledge you become afraid, afraid for the rest of your life, and do
you think about that child pierced through by swords, swallowed by
beasts, eaten by desperate men, set on fire, tossed from a balcony, head
bashed in, brains bashed out, dead, dead, dead, a dead thing, your child is
already a dead thing - and you are already a dead thing - for were you
not once a child? And didn’t you feel those same fears - those fears that
child is feeling right now, coursing through his body, tensing every mus-
cle, cramping every inch of nerve, heart racing - didn’t you feel it, too?
And do you think about it, how you will die - how it could happen at
any time - does anyone live to their last year? The very limits of their
life? No - every life is cut short - every life is cut in half - there is no such
thing as a natural death - every death is murder - and you will be mur-
dered just the same - struck by lightning - trampled by a horse - stabbed
by a lover - stabbed by a father - stabbed by a stranger, left to bleed and
die and rot in an alley and your body not found for weeks, for weeks, in
the sun, rats on your arms and face, insects in your hair and skin - killed
by the plague - cursed - drowned in the lake you swam in as a child -
drowned in the bath - choked - strangled - always, and forever, these
hands on your throat - these elbows on your chest, pressing in, pushing
down - this breath on your face, filling your nose, the spit in your mouth
- this is LIFE - THIS IS LIFE - this is what we are - and there is noth-
ing that is not this, nothing different, no place that is safe, no golden age
- no age free of death - and your child, and your mother and father, and
every single one of your friends, every person on the street, every per-
son in the buildings you pass, your teachers, your enemies, your Self -
they are all dead - they are already dead - and you are dead - so how
can you feel love at all - you are loving a corpse - you are kissing your
mother’s dead forehead - your are holding your father’s dead hand -
you are laughing with a corpse - you are screaming in a cemetery - you
are holding your dead son, cradling a piece of wax, nursing a cold mass
of dead flesh - and if this is so - and it is so, do not lie to yourself - do not
say that being alive made it all worthwhile - do not say that they lived
full lives - because no one lives any life at all - nothing lives - and if this
is true - then why - why do you stay here - why do you continue - why
do you not have the courage and the heart and the truth inside you - to
take this knife - to hold it to your throat - to overcome the whims of life
- to defeat life - because death is truth - and truth is death - and we
move towards that which is true - and move to death - shuffle to it - but
you have the courage to run towards it - to welcome it - to not live in
fear of it - to not live in dread of it - always pretending, always lying -
saying you don’t see it, that it is not there - that these people are alive -
that you are alive - when all you are is dead and a liar - the same as
everyone else - why do you not tell the truth? - why don’t you tell the
truth?