Dear Death

Apollo Fields | Dear Blank | Dear Death | Terrence Huie | Writer

“Dear Death,

I do not fear you; I fear your aftermath. I fear the idea of a childless father and partnerless mother because a family is a collective. A unit. Greater than the sum of its parts. But your inevitability does not scare me.

Most want you to come in the night like a specter, silent and unannounced. When our skin is wrinkled and our face sags. Heather’s grandfather, Hermann, used to say that he wished his mind didn’t outlive his body; and I’m not sure which I want to go first. Do you ever why humans struggle with you so much?

We don’t talk about you too much in our culture. We wait until you have taken one of our souls. Then we get a wooden box and put a horseshoe shaped arrangement of flowers next to it. The room always feels stale, smells like it too. Like we’ve been stuffed into the coat pocket of one of grand’s old jackets that’s been hanging in the closet. I wonder what you say about us.

Is there any rhyme or reason to when you take someone? We can’t make Any sense of it. The optimist in me thinks that it can’t be all bad. No heaven and hell shit. We (humans) only create dichotomies or binary oppositions because universalities are roads to nowhere. And we like to know where we’re going.

The pale horse came to me in a dream last night. It was spooky as fuck. I woke up to white noise and an empty bed. Heather was cuddling with Capa in his. I thought for a second that it was you. Then I heard Capa cry and Heather console him. I laid awake for a few more moments before dozing off.

I guess I’m not concerned with where I’m going because I’m happy with where I have been. It can’t be heaven or hell because humans can’t get anything right. I posit that it is an eternal dream to which you are the arbiter. The images our mind project are the ones that dominated our lives. I do not fear you, I fear the ideas I decide to pay attention to.

Until my arbitrary time comes,

Terrence”