Monday, September 22, 2014

Three Lies

Short Story by Korinza Shlanta of Cerro Coso Community College
2014 Met Awards - 1st Place for College Fiction

People are told three lies about dying. The first is that everyone dies alone. I watched my friend Sam take his own life, watched his hands drop to his sides, and I even felt his last breath leave his body. I waited around for a long while to see if his soul was going to just jump out of that now motionless corpse and fly away into the great beyond we are always told about, but it never happened. I wasn't the only one expecting his soul to jump out and fly away, either. However, science seems to work even when all else fails. The moment his body ceased functioning the microbes that lived in his systems started their work of decomposition. Like what happened to Mozart after he died. It reminds me how Sam always liked the music jokes I told him.

I have known Sam for as long as I can remember. Bit of a quiet kid growing up, but so was I. I think that is what made us such compatible friends. Sometimes we would banter back and forth, make jokes, create code languages, but people only ever really looked at us with suspicious glances, like we were up to no good. We never did much harm, at least I never did anyway, Sam was the one to act out our plans while I just watched and reaped the benefits of it coming about. Sam always seemed to be a step ahead., but good thing I thought further than he could run. He had his troubles, but who doesn't? He never could run away from those. I like to think I was the creative one in that relationship though. It was me who came up with the idea to sneak into the mortuary to put a squirting flower on the tux of our mutual friend Allen. Boy, was he a smart one. Allen always had a story to get us out of trouble. He was so good with words. He always could make me feel like everything was the greatest story. I will never forget the look on his mothers face though when she leaned in to kiss his eyes. Then again, there is plenty of time to still forget.

Our adolescent years were more tumultuous. We were men, but no one else seemed to think so. We had reached puberty and took upon ourselves the responsibilities that are taken in response to freedom. The only hindrance we encountered was the lack of freedom. So in the coming of age, we agreed together that we needed to find a greater meaning to life than that of which we knew. So we told our parents that we needed to expand our horizons and shed the down of our wings to take to the skies. And that is precisely what we did. We went into the army as paratroopers. Young men always seem to overestimate their courage. Our boots landed on the soft German soil. We hid clustered together behind a church in the graveyard, too full of cowardice to move. It must have been the training that kicked in, but it took all of us to stop the man from running and telling anyone where we were. He seemed to be deep in thought, but it looked like he saw us. We could not take such a risk. We were men of action.

Sam was a good, thoughtful fellow though. He never missed the chance to pick up a good book, work in the garden, or stroll through the park in the late afternoon. He often tried to immerse himself in art, music, and the teachings of great thinkers, but he could never really find an escape from his troubles. He never could outrun them, or himself, he couldn't find a sanctuary from the evil that plagued his mind. Yet, he thought death would be the final solution. He must have thought it was going to bring him peace or perhaps meet God. I never did admired his silly boyish ways. They were never thinking far enough ahead.

The great thinkers have proposed a plethora of theories about death and what happens to the soul when a person dies. Often the theories are told to us just to bring us comfort. “Like my favorite, you will get to see your loved ones again and rest in peace.” “Or my favorite, may he rest in pieces. Or my favorite, to be written in among the greatest story ever.” “Or my favorite, death is the next step to those willing to look down.” Sam was a good guy, but he was always trying to outrun his demons. He even tried running away from our relationship. He stopped laughing and joking with me, telling me his stories, or telling me what he was thinking. It is a terrible thing he felt we needed to be on such poor terms, but we have plenty of time to catch up later.

The second lie about dying is that your troubles leave you once you die. All of us are still here though. We are just waiting on Sam, and he should be here soon. See, that's something that they forget to tell you. The first thing to go is hearing, then sight, feeling, and then finally the “spirit” will go on its way. However, that's only after the microbes finish their job cleaning up. You didn't think that the spirit would be allowed to be so rude as to leave right after leaving such a mess did you? At least Sam doesn't have to be alone the whole time. Ah, good fellow, even we will be polite and introduce ourselves when he gets here. Oh before I forget, that brings me to the last untruth.

The third lie about death is that you were ever alone to begin with.

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