ways to be mean

"i just feel like it makes sense."

"what does?"

"me being dead. i dunno."

"you dunno, but you feel like."

"yeah. feeling isn't knowing, is it?"

"sometimes feeling is all we have to go on."

"stop quoting star trek at me."

"i didn't call you mr. spock, did i? i didn't quote anything at all."

but star trek just reminds you of a time when you wanted something, when you felt something, when you cared.

of course feelings are all we have to go on. knowledge is just a feeling that we're right, based on the probability that someone else would agree.

and blah blah blah blah, heaven and hell are other people.

probability. facts. logic. emotion.

"maybe it would be easier if i were a star trek guest star. a character actor, just being dramatic for the week."

"and are your dramatics, in fact, only for the week?"

not if you're dead. can't do a thing if you're dead.

(and all i think about is death - death, death, death.)

can't feel any feelings. can't know any things.

"i guess i'd be sad that i couldn't see you anymore. except, how could i be sad?"

how could i be sad? dramatics are only for the weak, the flighty and the temporary.

dramatics are only an effect, an affectation toward expressing that we might have feelings, thoughts, minds.

but minds are for thinking. minds are for logic. minds aren't supposed to be knowing about life and death, and other such matters.

so we might stop thinking about it. we might just stop talking, for a while.

"you can kill yourself anytime."

"anytime?"

"sure!"

sure. but.

"maybe you want to wait for more information, before you make your final pronouncement."

"like the scientific method. conclusion."

over, and over, and it's over, again.

"how many iterations for your procedure? how much data are you gathering?"

"i'd have to have decided that ages ago."

"maybe. or, maybe you could decide it now, and re-decide it later. because-"

"because if i could decide it now, having already started, then i could re-decide it later with equal legitimacy."

and again, and again, and again. it's a trap!

"sound reasoning."

"you can suppose anything."

"sure you can, with twelve angry men. but you're just one, and you're not angry."

"sure i am. i'm always angry."

"your secret?"

"not hardly."

"you'd think, and yet..."

how terribly old-fashioned. what a rigid, righteous conversation.

maybe nothing that ever mattered very much was any more information than could be spudged up on a surface spread of silly putty. maybe.

and maybe the human brain was made of a kind of sterner stuff.