AMKent books

“Ultimately, no matter how much sustainability or Nirvana you think you have found, it is all just terror management.”

Mr Genova, a skinny, transparent skinned human. Always smoking terribly rolled cigarettes. The blue of his veins create a repulsive topography on his skeletal white hands, a man that looks like death, is now lecturing me about it.

“I think that’s Becker, but he was right after all. Take this cigarette for example, every tug on this is like tugging my tombstone closer towards me. I am scared of the prospect, not right now, because I haven’t had to face the reality of it. However, when I can see that tombstone through the mist of ambiguity, I will panic.”

He is speaking in absolutes, not everyone is scared of death. Take the suicidal for example, they welcome it. I hate these psuedo-profound types, like they know any more about dying than the rest of us.

“You know, when I first saw a dead person, it struck me how colourless their eyes seemed. You can see the shell for what it is, all hollowed out of vigour. I wonder if its an evolutionary thing, or maybe we just know when the spirit has gone on its travels. Hell, what do you think?”

I have no real answer for this, and I know whatever I say will merely serve as the catalyst for Mr Genova’s musings on the unknowable.

“Maybe, I am not sure… I guess I lean towards us knowing the soul has evacuated.”

He pretends to ponder my weak answer, I brace for his retort.

“Where would it go? Reincarnation? To God? Maybe it waits with the others until judgement day? Or the universe sucks itself back into whatever pinhole it sprung out of?! Too many questions, not enough answers.”

“It could just become something else, a star or maybe a process above our understanding. Seen as we are all the interplay of infinity.”

Lord, I am starting to sound like him.

“Oh, I like that, what an interesting idea. A metamorphosis? Hmm, we could be the fuel time runs on, or maybe for death to even function it needs a body of souls? No, wait, maybe our deaths are like a weight on the back of existence, and finally, one of us will be the straw that breaks it!”

“I don’t know, Mr Genova. It is an interesting thought.”

He checks his phone, smirks and annoyingly, invades my personal space with a firm grasp on my shoulder. How does such a thin, ligament protruding hand even muster such a grip?

“I better leave you, your break will end soon and you no doubt have many more interesting conversations from customers to plough through.”

“Ha, yeah, it seems a scratch card really brings out the best in people.”