Death

People die. All the time.

Not the same person, of course. No, no. Multiple persons are dying. They are dropping like flies all around us.

I wonder about that. Do flies drop when they die? I suspect that flies perceive the onset of death, land on some comfortable, horizontal, surface and then shuffle off this earthly coil.

One of my school friends died recently. She was a tiny person with a huge heart. One wonders if she occupies more space in heaven than she did on Earth.

R.I.P. Wendy. You are remembered for all the right reasons.

We are now modern, civilised and sophisticated. We abhor the sight and, even, thought of death. Millions of years of evolution in mind and body have been snuffed out in a deluge of pity, sympathy and comradely condolences.

Have they? One wonders.

In days of yore huge crowds attended public executions. Kings and Queens were put to the sword in public. Minor celebrities were axed and nasty, common, people were hanged.

The last public execution in England was of Michael Barrett:

“Yesterday morning, in the presence of a vast concourse of spectators, Michael Barrett, the author of the Clerkenwell Explosion, was hanged in front of Newgate. In its circumstances there was very little to distinguish this from ordinary executions. The crowd was greater, perhaps, and better behaved; still, from the peculiar atrocity of the crime for which Barrett suffered, and from the fact of its being probably the last public execution in England, it deserves more than usual notice.”

(Acknowledgements to:

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Timeline/Execution.htm

where you can read the whole article.)

“...a vast concourse of spectators...” arrived to watch the death of a Fenian.

Indeed.

More recently we have seen Japanese officers playing a game whereby they try to remove the heads of prisoners in one blow of a sword. Difficult to do, it seems, and, judging by the competitive spirit from the onlookers, a thing of joy to behold.

In Afghanistan there is documented evidence of the pseudo-Islamic group known as ‘The Taliban’ (it means ‘Student’ – this will give a clue as to their origins) executing people, women specifically, in front of crowds in football stadia.

We are far more civilised than to engage in these activities, are we not?

And yet videos of beheadings, of shootings at petrol (gas) stations, school shootings are ever more popular.

A public eager for blood seizes upon them. To feel the thrill of escaping death themselves; to embrace that warm feeling of immortality that we get from seeing another person die.

It is a small wonder, then, that cock-fighting, dog-fights and bull fighting is ever more popular.

It is a step – a small step, away from the Roman Amphitheatre as lovingly portrayed in television series like ‘Spartacus’.

It is base, it is cruel, it is primeval. It takes us back to where we came from. A point in time when we were part of the food chain.

Death is not glamorous and neither is it glorious. Bodies do not lay down neatly disposed, clean and tidy. In a disaster there is often only body parts that are difficult to find and even more difficult to assemble into part bodies.

We are cruel. As a species. We are cruel to each other and we are cruel to animals.

We are not so far removed from nature as carnivores feasting on prey that still lives.

People make comments about other people. Decrying them for their beliefs, their culture, their traditions. They do this without looking inwards; examining themselves.

We grieve about people who die singly or in groups but the difference is only numerical. There is little difference between one person dying and a hundred people perishing in a disaster.

Each person has one life. To that person it is the most valuable thing that you possess.

Seeing others die is a confirmation that we are alive; knowing that others have died is sad.

Only other people die. But remember this:

To everyone else – YOU are the other person.