Dead People

I think I might know more dead people that alive ones by now. Sorta comforting, really, if you don’t think about it too hard. And one of the good things about it is that the dead people I know hardly ever disappoint—and only do when some alive person tells me something negative I hadn’t known about the dead person, which doesn’t seem fair anyway, really.

Supposedly, one of the advantages of being dead is that you’re locked in and you don’t make any more mistakes, don’t fuck anyone over, don’t lie anymore, don’t get misunderstood, don’t accidentally impregnate anyone, don’t cut anyone off in traffic and don’t really have to explain anything to anyone.

But the primary disadvantage is that you don’t get to stick up for yourself, which is why I think it’s pretty low for alive people to diss on the dead ones, know what I mean? It’s the ultimate Talking Behind Someone’s Back. But we still do it, at least I do, and, honestly, if I’m right about the dead people I know, I think they know when people are talking shit about them—alive people, like me, can sort of feel it, like the feeling of someone watching you when you know you’re alone or walking in the woods—and that offense is registered somewhere between here and infinity and at some point when the shit-talking alive person becomes a dead one themselves, there’s hell to pay, if you see what I mean.

I mean negativity, pettiness, small-mindedness and narcissism are just as insoluble as truth, peace and joy, whether in the context of this mortal coil or beyond it. And if you don’t believe me, take this little test:

Think of one of the dead people you know that was a fuck-up or even evil when they were an alive person. Picture their face. Maybe it’s an easy one like Hitler or Epstein or that guy that made lampshades from human skin or something. Or maybe it’s someone you used to know that treated you or someone you know poorly even if they’re not on the Hitler or Epstein or Ed Gein level (I googled it). In any case, recognize that even the shit-ass dead people you know—just like the shit-ass alive ones—had at least some redeeming quality; if nothing else, they were human beings, which is a miracle no matter what. I mean, they at least had a shot at being a decent human and even if they were awful, as long as they were alive, they had the opportunity for redemption, even if that opportunity was forfeited. So, with that as a foundational underpinning, you’d think some mercy, if not outright understanding, might weigh in. But, even if it does weigh in, intellectually, viscerally, they still suck. That is, I can get my head around the fact that Epstein and Hitler and the skin lampshade guy were cuddly infants once and probably not born the Devil, like Rosemary’s Baby or something.

But that doesn’t matter. As an alive person, in your alive person’s mind’s eye, Hitler and Epstein and serial killers still suck. And when you hear the name Hitler or Epstein or Gein, try—I double-fucking-dare you—just try to think away the negativity. You can’t. This is Dante’s Inferno. Milton’s Paradise Lost. John’s Revelation.

Negativity is a stain that even the bleach of death can’t clean any more than it can erase any sort of positivity the dead people—at least the ones I know—left behind for us alive people to ponder, appreciate and benefit from, and since I can’t end a sentence in a preposition, I’ll finish with a noun.

Anyhowsers, the point is that all these alive masked bandit kidnappers shooting mothers in the face and kneeling on people’s necks until they’re a dead person, are gonna get it when they become dead people themselves—not because they’ll be thrown into some subterranean lake of fire for eternity—that’s just a metaphor for Chrissakes (see what I did there?), but because all the alive people are gonna know and feel and live with the Truth. For eternity. Even after they too become dead people. Because the Truth is the Truth whether people believe it or not. The Truth doesn’t give a shit about being believed. Especially by us puny-minded humans. Humans come up with “facts.” And alternative facts. But the Truth just is. Like Global Warming. Or the smell of newborn baby breath. Or the feeling of your first kiss in your best friend’s basement when everyone else was upstairs.

Take it from a very talented liar: Liars know when they’re lying and liars know that everyone knows they’re lying when they’re lying, the same way actors know they’re acting and the audience watching the actors know they’re watching actors acting and freely give themselves over to the Willing Suspension of Disbelief the same way anyone watching that guy shoot that lovely woman in the face knows that’s just what happened even if they’re Willingly Suspending their Disbelief because they’ve already invested in the show, the act, the façade, the joke, the narrative.

I’m not saying liars don’t get away with it—of course we do. For a while. But at some point, the show is over and the Truth shows up and the actors—even the great and beautiful ones, along with the shitty ones like Epstein, Hitler, Gein and the guys shooting innocents in the face and the folks paying them to do so—eventually, they go home and take shits and get haircuts and have toothaches and think about all the dead people they know.

-parnell