Postmortem 48

Nobody gets out of here alive.  It's in the contract.  We all live under the same death sentence.  Our crime?  Existing.  Simply by existing, darlings.  We do reserve the option of making this planet better or worse for coming generations.  We haven't done too well with that one.  Now we are living under this pandemic.    We will, of course, get through it.  We always do.  But not unscathed.  And our heinies are going to be considerably sorer once we are done with all this.   People are going to die, maybe not a lot, this is not the Black Death Revisited, but enough to make a lot of us pretty darn worried.   I could be part of the collateral damage.  Or maybe you, Gentle Reader.  But we are also quite a bit more squeamish and anxious, and basically softer and way more coddled than our ancestors, so this pandemic really has us scared like chickens.

I think it's natural to fear death.  After all, we are all wired to live, to want to live, and to embrace and enjoy being alive.  But there is something of an absolute screaming terror of death that seems to have overtaken us, really showing us to be a generation of unprecedented cowards.  I fear death, or, better said, I have a natural fear of death.  But I am not terrified of it.  I have been around a lot of death and dying in my time, especially through my rich and lengthy pastoral and palliative care experience and background, particularly during the AIDS pandemic of the eighties and nineties.

Still, the anxiety is at times inescapable.  I was out today for a very long walk, and at time had to put my bandana around my face because there were a lot of people to pass, and either it wasn't possible for safe passing, or others were just not concerned about it.  I only began to get over it when I remembered my sense of humour and began to play with it, such as stepping aside for someone to pass, smiling and wishing them safe passage, and suchlike.  They almost always smile and often have some humorous riposte to toss my way.

all that said, I am back home, alive and well, and here are some more links to my novel for your reading pleasure, darlings....


https://aaronbenjaminzacharias.blogspot.com/2014/06/thirteen-crucifixions-11.html
https://aaronbenjaminzacharias.blogspot.com/2014/06/thirteen-crucifixions-12.html
https://aaronbenjaminzacharias.blogspot.com/2014/06/thirteen-crucifixions-14.html