So long and thank you.

It's easy to forget how weak and fragile and frail someone was when you can only imagine them full of life. Having seen her every day, in these ways. Skinny, down to the bone, her flesh barely a buffer between inside and out. Moaning, in pain or fear or anger, it's hard to tell, maybe a combination of all of them or maybe just an unknown ailment. Immobile, struggling to walk, leaning this way and that, falling over, slow. Weak, too tired to eat, too fatigued to move or talk, uncaring to overcome such large hurdles for basic functions.

Its not something that is seen in the moment. It's the same girl you've always known, strong and fierce, lively and spirited. Noticing on a subconscious level but in denial of what you know is happening. She's sick, but getting better. She has a good day and you think to yourself, there we go, she's on the up and up. Then all that comes cascading back when she falls hard the next day, literally and figuratively. Still, it's so difficult to change your perception at this point. You're certainly not trying to change it. Even when my logical mind knew what was going on, I was convinced, by her majesty, that I was being foolish. Maybe she was actuslly the first being that will live forever. 

After her passing, some old pictures made me realize what I had refused to see all along. In those photos she was bright and charming, eyes full of light. More weight on her bones and more bounce in her step. Videos of her quirks, mannerisms. Ones that didn't happen anymore later on, when she couldn't be bothered, or couldn't muster the energy. I had always viewed her this way, which is a testament to her essence. Leaving such a legacy of your personality, that even when it's gone, you're still a picture of yourself. When the power drains away and your being is unsound, yet the difference is not acknowledged, the vision of you that you have created never wavers.

It was strange to, at the same time, be reminded she wasn't herself at the end, and to also know that you never thought that, not once, until you were absolutely forced. Not until things were over did reality set in, pull back the veil and stun you with the truth. I couldn't be happier to have things happen this way.

Happy is a relative term. Once more I tell myself I am, tell others I am, then suddenly tears are dripping from my chin, and I'm fighting against my body not to convulse from the sobs. Again I am tricked by my mind, by my perception. This doesn't feel like happiness. My emotions tell me otherwise. But I know. A picture of her, bright green eyes highlighting her trademark scowl, goes in and out of focus as I clear my vision and have it subsequently blurred again by a rush of emotion. Though it does make me smile. She made me smile a lot, almost always, even when she was mad and didn't like me. When she wanted nothing to do with me. Later, also, when she was happy at the sight of me and let me know that. My body is telling me I've been wronged, that I should be sad, that I'm better off a pool of filth on the floor. She reminds me, even now, without presence, that my body is wrong.

Memory is sometimes what you choose, and in this instance, I can be glad, because it was chosen for me. Her influence so positive, so joyful, such a wholesome, innocent factor, that I had no other option than to be happy. During her struggle, I saw her as her brave and daring self. She was always a coiled viper and a blooming flower. Her heart beat fully and strong, her body rumbled and shook with power. Never compromising herself, even overlooking the void. An obelisk of confidence, of perseverance. Steadfast in herself through trial and tragedy. She was never anything but herself, until the last day. She had no choice. The same way that now, just by knowing her, I have no choice. It was chosen for me to be happy. There may be tears in my eyes, but there is a smile beneath them. To be like her would be a blessing. We would be lucky. 

The burden of a livelihood

Power doesn't instantly course through my veins when I pull the lever.  There is an idealized form of my job, but that doesn't really exist.  There are simply different types of people who do it.  We all do the same thing.  I stand still while pious types do a lot of grandstanding, and I fasten the noose and tighten it around the neck.  I wait a tick to let things settle and I gently pull a lever.  The rest is done by forces of nature and time.  The floor drops, along with the body, and then it's over.  Quick and blank.  

Talking to some of the others like me you get a sense of who they are.  I'm strange in the way I have gone to see them work, asked them about it afterwards.  Got their feelings, studied their behavior.  People who don't do this job think it's a tale of stoicism.  A life of death, misery, but also a demented sort of power, as if we handed down the sentence.  As if we were more involved.  Some of them distract themselves.  Get lost in their persona and public perception.  Feed into it because it's easier than fighting it.  Others end up wishing it was them.  They feel responsible, they feel powerless, and they can't come to terms with their actions.  There is no internal struggle for me.  I am not conflicted.  There is no joy in my pursuit, but I am in control of my emotions.  I do not let my proximity to death allow it to encompass and eclipse me. 

I didn't kill those people any more than the smiling spectators did, or the rope, or the stage.  I am not a harbinger.  So distant am I from involvement I may as well be ethereal.  A ghost.  I am no more a murderer than a wave crashing a body against a cliff face.  No more at fault than the ocean swallowing a sailor.  I share the same blame as gravitational pull. So steadfast in myself am I that I do not need these comparisons.  I am unlike a powerful unseen force.  I am removed from contention.  So light is my footprint I elude detection from the keenest eye,  Hidden in plain sight.  No, I am not a killer. The death may as well be natural.  Often times it wasn't even their actions that caused their death, other than having the misfortune to exist in a time when the people who say you get hanged don't like you, or worse, don't even think of you at all. I am the pillar, the anchor, the lightning rod. 

The clothes are a part of the act.  The demeanor, the methodical way I move are because I'm distracted by my own thoughts.  Sometimes about what is happening on the stage, but other times about what is happening in my own life, or the lives of the people I consort with.  What I do is precisely that: my actions forced my chosen profession.  I am not a hulking demon obsessed with death, nor am I an unfeeling ape, taking lives with instinctual malice.  I am not a sadist, torturer, or lunatic.  I am not deranged.  But I am not unaffected. 

A swaying body is no longer foreign to me.  Not wholly comfortable, but something I see more frequently than a shoreline or a theater show.  It has taken it's toll, but mostly, it is dull.  My mind distracts me and I come to watching the corpse swing, hypnotized by the pendulum.  Imagine my surprise when this first happened to me.  Being comfortable enough with a cadaver on display that I idled like a feline. 

And while I do not feel guilt, and I do tend to wander or fall into a trance, I do feel something for the loss.  To me, life has become even more cherished.  The spectators, the crowd of thrill-seekers, the revenge-stricken psychos eagerly waiting for the drop are the scary ones.  Truly frightening it is to see a mass of villagers gather to watch a man die, only to disperse once the entertainment is over.  Once the soul flees the body, the last twitch melts out of their bones.  They care not for what each person has done.  To them they are criminal, deserving.  Maybe a few people are apathetic.  The rarities are dissenters. They somehow feel less for these doomed vessels than I do. I can hardly blame them. You would assume my desensitization to the ordeal due to my inundation with it, but I've learned a valuable lesson about the preservation of life. I wish to prolong it now, in all things. Seeing that husk dangle carelessly now makes me see the life in things thought lifeless and vacant.

I'm no executioner. I'm no madman. This isn't just a job. When you see death every day you become desensitized to it, but I've become hyper sensitive to life. When a man is stood strapped with a rope around his neck, staring into a crowd that is waiting to watch the soul leave the body, that makes you wonder. I see myself in them. Perilously walking the line between worlds, as we all are. Facing mortality by virtue of awareness. The grand illusion of complacency. Fear behind a veil of delight. So much is unknown, and for that, please be thankful. If we had more knowledge, understanding, and comprehension, we might not be able to leave our homes. All of us, fetal, crying, feeble against the futility of it all. We're all dead men, yet we walk, breathe, and deliberately encounter strife. Only to be hung by the neck, have an axe brought down on us, or to be lucky and go without splendor, frail and empty, alone in a bed. No purpose could have enough merit to warrant this. No virtue could eclipse the dread of an eternity as a corpse. 

There is no duty in life. Piousness or reverance cannot save us, from ourselves, or our fate, or the long dark of after death. I am thankful, being the one who pulls the lever. The man who commands the drop. It is a constant reminder that I should be happy because I can be happy. Misery would be easy, and just as fruitless. To be defiant in the face of extinction is to live. Guilt doesn't plague me, death is but the one thing we all have in common. I do not take them there with a light heart, but a stone mind. Fastening the rope, pulling the hood over their heads, changing them from living to something else. A daily reminder, not of the utter futility of life, but that to squander it is the only true sin. So easy it would be, under the circumstances, to give up, to quit, to laze about and cry and whimper. Easier than hanging a man. Easier than having a noose rend your consciousness from its cask. Choosing difficulty keeps me sane, makes me happy, creates a purpose. 

Each person must derive their own purpose. We are not here for a reason. There is no power, no majesty, no cosmic camaraderie. Futility is beaten back into its cage like a mindless beast, who will eventually overpower us and win, but for now, is only a threat in our minds. I feel no guilt as a hangman, but I do feel something. As each life wanes, I am reinvigorated in myself. Not as a direct result, but through my introspection. If we must all meet our end, let us face it strong and passionate. We can choose how to meet our fate. I will face it with a smile and a wave, to be remembered. Or maybe I'll face it with a noose around my neck, a hood on my head, and someone pushing me into the void. 

Known and Unknown

It was as if out of a dream. Ugh. I hate even saying that. I sound like all of the people I've dismissed in the past. It was though. Surreal. It didn't feel very frightening or spooky but it had a sort of mystical quality to it.

-------------

My emotions got the better of me and I was fuming.  It was my own fault, and actually quite petty, but I don't decide when anger takes me, I'm simply a vessel.  In an effort to become better at controlling myself after becoming irate (or any emotion I don't want to be feeling), a new routine was formed.  The emotion wells up inside me, I feel myself overreacting, and here is where I have been trying to remind myself to take a deep (deep) breath.  That alone doesn't usually help, so tonight I took a walk.  I rushed out of the house hastily due to my brain's zeal, and with haste typically comes carelessness.  Of course I left my phone on my desk.  It wasn't of grave importance, but it's one of those things you become so accustomed to that you feel different when you don't have it.  I almost didn't feel myself. 

I like the darkness.  Contrary to everyone I have ever talked to, I find comfort in it.  An almost immediate sense of calm came over me once I allowed my eyes to drink in the darkness around me.  It's such a pleasant walk around the neighborhood at three in the morning.  You're in a different place entirely.  It's so very quiet.  The type of quiet where you can hear leaves rustling from a gentle gust on a tree a full block away.  The quiet that accompanies darkness.  A good quiet.  Being in a bit of a suburb you have only street lamps to illuminate the path.  As I leered into the spotlight of the lamp at the end of the street, I realized how little I knew about light.  You don't think about it often, but it's more mysterious than it lets on.  There was simply a cone of light in front of me.  The darkness was all around it, and it was almost as if there was a firm barrier.  At one point, light, at the very next, dark.  They butted up against each other and didn't battle for supremacy but instead recognized their own limits.  I wondered why the light didn't reach further, glow brighter, or allow me to see more.  Only half a block away, I had enough light to see my clothes and my shoes, and the surrounding foliage, but not to discern the different colors on them.  I knew my sneakers were red, my pants were navy blue, and the weeds popping up between the sidewalk were green, but they were dull, foreign.  Only memories. Interesting, and like the quiet, altogether unique in it's portrayal.  I felt so hidden.  An observer on the fringe of living.  I could press myself up against the hedge blocking off the yard next to me and, if anyone else decided to venture out here, they'd never see me, even if they were looking. 

A moment of lucidity showed me I had calmed down, so I circled back around the block to head home.

As I made the turn, a black plastic bag made it's way to the middle of the street, about two full blocks straight ahead.  It reached the middle of the street and stopped dead.  I followed it's lead.  I'm not afraid of bags, but it wasn't very windy, so I decided to have a stare down.  The uncertainty of the situation dawned on me.  That was just some litter, right?  Here is where I disagree with people about the dark, but I couldn't help but take a cautious approach.  I'm not one to allow being alone in the dark turn something so innocuous into something frightening, I was just unsure.  It was only a few seconds, but the the bag, which I can see clearly now is not a bag, crawled back to the side of the street it blew in from, then disappeared.  The new clarity filled in some holes that my dubious brain left out.  What looked like a bag before was very clearly an animal, sat down on it's hind and looking at me, before it walked back the same way it came.  It looked too big to be a cat.  It wasn't a skunk, I could clearly see it's belly and it's at least somewhat feline features.  A fox, perhaps?  Do they have foxes around here?  I cursed myself for not knowing.  It seems a very simple fact, yet I was entirely stumped.  And why haven't I moved?  I just kept looking at where this creature had been. 

I detest when people have a strange encounter and their first reaction is to chalk it up to the occult.  I am a vehement denier of ghost stories, especially since every single one I have ever been told by someone contains the phrase ''it just felt weird.'' How foolish I looked, my pride quickly extinguished, as I stood here in awe of a simple animal out for a walk.  Why did this feel so strange to me?  The creature was silhouetted perfectly by the street lamp between us, so it was entirely black.  I couldn't make out any distinguishing features.  It really was bigger than a cat.  It really did sit in the center of the street and look at me for as long as I looked at it.  Those things happened.  I'm a credible source.  The most credible I will get during this event is right here and now, when I'm not trying to retell it and it's fresh in my mind.  I also hate that it vanished before my eyes.  The corner of the street it walked back to is the hilly corner of someone's small front yard, so it should have been visible for a while.  I couldn't track it.  I don't know where it went.  It just wasn't there anymore. 

For a while I thought about what it looked like from the other side.  This poor maybe-cat, maybe-fox, just wanted to cross the street and a spooky human stood in the middle of the street staring at it, and stayed there for what had to have been minutes, even after it slinked away.  Any bystanders coming my way would have seen  a man all by his lonesome at this time of night, standing there.  Menacing.  Innocently lost in thought, but looking murderous, as night tends to make us.

This didn't turn me into a believer.  I'm not one of those poor people who don't believe until ''something'' happens to them. Nothing else even remotely intriguing happened the rest of the walk home, if you want to consider that part intriguing.  I kept walking that way, since I had to, and I checked down the street it went down when I arrived there.  It was pitch dark.  I saw no movement, no animal, not a thing.  I stood there for a few seconds, hoping that I would get my resolution, but alas I was met with nothing but a deep black and a soft, warm, conformable breeze.  So I'm not some loon who thinks they saw something supernatural, but I can't deny that something so simple, so banal, so run-of-the-mill made me want to think I was.  Maybe it has no merit at all.  If the same thing had happened in the light of day, surely I wouldn't feel this way.  I would have just seen an animal walk across the street.  I don't attribute this to the power of souls, specters, or spirits, but to my comfortable blanket of darkness.  Is this a damning glimpse into the fragile human psyche, which longs for adventure and mysteries and a break from the monotonous existence we've made for it?  Does this desire to see magic in the world force us to create it out of smoke and haze and communal fear?  Do our vivid imaginations always seek to fill the gaps in our understanding and in our memories? I will not allow complacency to turn me into a hapless sod, pining after a trifle to add substance.  I will not become a prophet, seeking to turn others to my cause. 

Or maybe I will.  What could it hurt?  I guess I really did see a ghost black cat in the middle of the night, and it made sure I did.  I had a brush with death as the spooky thing stared me down.  Ghosts do exist and I've seen one, without a doubt.  You're bound to see one, too.  It's probably watching you right now.  They don't come out until it's dark, though.  Just like me.