life through death

rewind four years to september 11th 2001. admit it. you know what i am talking about. the pentagon is still smoking. the two towers are a crumbled mess. you were waiting. not just waiting. deep down you were hoping for something else. another plane to crash. a building to blow up. another terrorist attack. you listened to the radio in search for more excitement. you turned to the news for info on the next hundred or so dead people. admit it, the higher number of deaths, the more exciting your life had become.

that’s what we are. we are all members of this demented club we call the human race.

rewind two more years. head west to littleton colorado. dylan klebold and eric harris have just killed their classmates and teachers. you were shocked. you may have cried. yet, you found it somewhat exciting. admit it. you liked it. for a while, deep down, you wanted it to happen somewhere else. to give you something to talk about. so you could sit in the break room at work, or in the halls of whatever building you were in, at the dinner table, wherever. you wanted it to happen again.

each death gives us a reason to wake up in the morning. we hate it. we want it to stop. we are disgusted by it. we go to bed and pray that it will end. we wake up and want it to happen again.

now fast forward a few years. fall two-thousand-two. head back east – a handful of miles away from the shadows of the simmering pentagon. john muhammad and john malvo have shot someone. they have shot someone else again. a mother. an elderly man. a child. old. young. black. white. ordinary people like you and mean. once again, just like the previous year, you are listening to the radio. you are tuning in to cnn. who will die next. when will someone die. on the outside you are saying you want it to stop. admit it. on the inside, you are excited. you want the numbers to rise. you are waiting, not out of fear – out of hope. with each death, you have new life. you find it exciting. admit it. you know what i’m talking about.

fast forward. rewind. play it back again and again. put in slow-motion to make it last. every school shooting. every mass murder. every earthquake. every train-wreck. plane crash. the higher the numbers, the more exciting our lives suddenly become. when a pair of new york times reporters discovered that the 9/11 deaths were double than the actual figure. we were angered. how dare they take away our deaths? how dare they take away our excitement.

rewind to last christmas. now fast forward one day. a tsunami has hit a large section of asia. at first it was just a little exciting. admit it. you know what i’m talking about. the first numbers were a little fun. something to mention during sunday’s dinner. 16,000 dead. the next day it got even better. you were shocked, saddened, and even deeply touched by all that happened. inside you wanted bigger numbers. you got your wish, but you wanted even more. you know what i’m talking about. each day the number doubled. each day you had something even better to discuss. you woke up each morning and the first thing you did was check out the latest death toll. once again, you had a reason to get up in the morning. it’s the same with every tragedy. ever mass destruction. you go to bed praying for it to end. you woke up hoping for more. just to wet your lips, they told you disease would later trump the initial figures. you may have donated money and supplies to the efforts, you showed that you wanted the dying to end. inside, you hoped malaria and dysentery and typhoid and cholera would give us something more to talk about.

all this gives us life. gives us hope. hope for more death. this is why we watch the news. we want pictures and images. we look away at first, then we look. and we look again. people jumping out of a plane wrecked skyscraper. bodies bulldozed into mass graves. body bags. blood. frightened children. it’s not necessarily the images, but the hope for the images. the hope for something exciting. something new.

this is why you like movies with mass deaths. independence day. armageddon. return of the king. kingdom of heaven. each of these movies playing out our hopes and dreams. a lot of dead people. none of them you. it’s as old as the bible. just look at noah’s ark. soddom and gomorrah. moses and his plagues. each day the egyptians and israelites had something to be excited for. what would happen next? blood. frogs. locusts. hail. a new plague for a new day. a break from the monotony

if it wasn’t for death and destruction, we wouldn’t have the news. nobody cares about the little happy stories. nobody tunes in to see some kid who won a spelling bee. we tune in to find the latest death tolls. we want to know how much destruction has been caused. we tune in to find out when we can tune in for more of it.

all of us. members of this funny little twisted club. this club we call the human race. a club of vampires – thriving and growing from each dying number.

admit it. you feel this same way. each death brings you a new life. a reason to get up in the morning. you know what i’m talking about. living a life through death.




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in other somewhat related news, i finished chuch palahniuk's haunted. this novel has to be the most sick, demented, and twisted thing i have ever read. however, just like the deaths above. i couldn't pull myself away. i tell myself i want to quit reading. that i don't want it to get any worse. i then flip the page and begin te next chapter... hoping to be shocked even more.

i think i need something a little more uplifting for my next novel.