One Dead Person

Cheever.

From "The Death Of Justina".

"I thought suddenly of the neglected graves of my three brothers on the mountainside and that death is a loneliness much crueler than any loneliness hinted at in life. The soul (I thought) does not leave the body but lingers with it through every degrading stage of decomposition and neglect, through heat, through cold, through the long winter nights when no one comes with a wreath or a plant and no one says a prayer."

That could possibly be the most painful, the least hopeful sentence ever written in the English language.

Jesus, it floored me.

I am indecisive about this whole soul thing (surprised?). I want to believe in a soul, it is a poetic concept. The idea that there is this ethereal part of me that is the real me, the pure me, the same now as it was on January 1, 1954, is a concept I dig.

But if I have a soul I want it to fly like an eagle when I croak. I want it released from my body to soar the way I probably never will in my lifetime.

I visualize my soul bursting free from the abused body and battered mind it has dealt with for a lifetime, gulping down lungfuls of peace and truth as it experiences sweet, pure freedom of existence.

Hopefully souls cannot be damaged. If they are vulnerable in any way, I shudder to think what I have done to my own.

They can't be vulnerable, right? Because what would be the point if they were?

So, yeah, I want to believe in the soul. My soul.

But maybe it is not ethereal. Maybe it is just the real me that I am chipping away to get at.

Maybe my soul is that thing that if and when I finally get to meet face to face I can say "Jesus Christ, it is so damn good to see you." That thing that will give me such a sense of release when recognized that the rest of my life will pale by way of comparison.

I refuse to believe that my soul will stick around and suffer through the decomposition of The Joe. That it will lie in black horror festering into eternity until my bones become dust.

The soul thing fascinates me also because my mind recoils at the idea that when I die there is nothing. No Joe-trace.

The whole theory of evolution leaves me wanting.

That it was and is random. That I will just cease to exist and that no part of me will remain to torture the universe with twisted logic.

This shit drives me crazy. I am so close to death that I can taste it. Even if I live to be 90 I am shoulder to shoulder with death, compared to our relationship when I was 23.

Is it necessary for me to make a decision? To get off the goddamn fence and commit?

Soul or no soul. Life goes on, life comes to a screeching halt.

Christ, I don't know.

Is there a penalty in eternity for not making a decision?

If just one dead person would come back to explain it all to me I could breath a lot easier.