Living Dead, Offer Reish [classic novels for teens .TXT] 📗

always hang over it and act as a thorn lodged at the center of my heart, never allowing me to be in peace or overcome the pain, and impossible to be extracted. Our future is the combination of our past and our present; for me there can be only suffering.

At work the rapport I used to have with my boss, the respect of my colleagues (or whatever respect they used to have for me), and my passion to make the best of myself have all vanished. I despise my job. I may quit, switch jobs, ask to clear the air with the boss; whatever I do, however, shall not change the fact that I've been wronged, crossed, and repaid for my commitment with disrespect.

Above all, I've simply been victimized. I'm victim of my family, my sweetheart, my workplace; of everything of meaning in my life. You might say that I'm a victim of the world. A rape or violent crime victim is entitled to wish for vengeance and receive justice; surely a man who's had everything taken away from him is entitled to as much. I'm fully entitled to seek vengeance, and even more so to bring about justice. And what better way to do so than to put an end to my life? It's perhaps the only thing I can do to hurt Lila and hold her accountable for her actions. And if not to hurt her (how can a man for whom she has no true feelings hurt her?), then at least to humiliate her before the wedding. It's the only way to make my parents understand the fallacy of their attitude. It's the only way to teach the boss a lesson and bring out the iniquity of favoritism at the workplace. It's the only way to stop my suffering and stand up to the injustices of the world. Yes, that's right: to jump off the balcony wouldn't, as many might claim, be an act of submission or capitulation; on the contrary, it is the ultimate act of reprisal, or self-sacrifice to prove a point and of the demonstration of the courage required to take matters into one's own hands.

The question of legality doesn't concern me, and it shouldn't have any different an effect on you (suicide, as you may already know, is generally illegal). The law is a framework that lays down general rules that ordinary people in ordinary circumstances ought to follow if we are to coexist in a complex society. It doesn't reflect the morals of every specific case; how could it? A legislator would have to be mad to invest any resources in regulating the desired behavior for a man in my condition. How many men have been before where I'm? How many will there be? Much less than many, surely.

As for the pain I will cause others, it has already been illustrated that those who are truly close to me, or who might sense they've had a part in my death, deserve to hurt. Anyone who will be truly affected by my death will be given a lesson to learn from and a stroke of justice following their own misdeeds. This brings us to another misconception, whereby there is an element of cowardice in taking one's own life. Cowardice! To make the ultimate sacrifice, to willfully bring oneself to undergo a vertical 80-meter fall and crash against a concrete floor with nobody to hold your hand or comfort you. To face the greatest instinctive human fear- death- in the eye, embrace it rather than flee it as a coward would do (and as we're programmed to do) and accept it. To go against nature and against the most intrinsic dogmas of society as a lone rogue who's willing to give away his most precious asset in the name of a worthy cause. How many people would be capable of it? Would you? Is that cowardice? I think not!

Life is a gift. I don't go back on my consent to this well-known axiom. But what does one do when he is given a poor gift that is intended as an insult, or perhaps comes with good intentions but would be harmful if used as designated? Should you use it as intended, suffering the negative consequences, only to appease the gift-giver? Does one's respect and sense of gratitude for a vase gifted require him to put it on display at the head of the living room table? Certainly a more prudent action such as replacing it for a more suitable gift or simply storing it away until it becomes useful would be far more productive and entirely acceptable. Well, my gift has come to the point where it causes far, far more grief and suffering than joy. Add up the chances of my life one day being worth living to the few positive aspects of my present life, and they would be far outweighed by my current suffering. What sense, then, is there in holding on to this accursed gift?

It’s often thought, especially by those who have yet to truly come face to face with death, that death and particularly suicide create something terrible that shouldn't exist and give up on something filled with boundless good. This is of course a gross misconception, as life and death are forever bound to coexist- never simultaneously but nonetheless inevitably and without exception. Once we're born we are given not only life but death as well, and it remains only a question of the balance between the two: when will life end and death kick in? My jumping off the balcony, then, wouldn't change the course of events entirely or introduce an external factor to the natural and immutable equation; it'd merely induce a change in timing. And though it's true that life should be valued higher than death, if only due to its evanescence, when life becomes a harrowing burden to the point where one wishes it to end, what point is there in prolonging it? No sane man would choose a long life of misery over a short one of relative happiness, and being no different in that respect I would be foolish not to alter the timing in my benefit; in the benefit of making my life a better one.

We are all the living dead, in a way. We are all alive at this moment but just the same will one day be dead, some of us sooner than others. The carrier of an incurable disease is just as sure to die as a newborn child with perfect genes and a wealthy family. You are just as much a living dead person as am I. It's not a question of life or death, but merely that of timing. And then what's so terrible about tampering with the natural timing supposedly designated for us by some superior force or simply according to the interaction of any number of factors that affect us? And anyway, is there any such thing as a natural timing, or are we actually referring to the timing in case we do everything within our power to prolong life and delay death?

Do you scorn every man who smokes a cigarette? Any teenager who engages in binge drinking? A regular practitioner of extreme sports? Do you reprimand yourself for speeding on the way to work? How rare is your consumption of steaks, pizza, hamburgers, dairy products? Can you count the times you've given up a much needed physical workout for lazing about in front of the television screen? You see, we all constantly make decisions that alter the balance of time between life and death, or in other words ones that shorten life and expedite death. We do so not in the name of some noble cause or great necessity, but for simple, fleeting pleasures. We willfully and daily follow courses of action that exchange our longevity for sensual indulgence, doing better at work or simply out of boredom. If life itself, not its content, was really as sacred as we sometimes proclaim it to be, then none of the above life-shortening actions would be tolerable, let alone customary. In reality, our own balance between life and death is ours to manipulate and control as we please, conditional upon nature's consent.

And I? It's true thatI intend to take an action that will shift my balance much more significantly than any action stated above, but the reason that drives me to do it is far superior to the reason that drives you to shift your own balance every day. I don’t crave momentary pleasure or immediate gratification; I crave to end a suffering that has become unbearable, like the terminally ill patient who wishes to be taken off the machines. My craving his even stronger, perhaps, as my pain isn't merely physical, but resides at the very core of my being, and we all know that emotional pain can reach far greater heights (thereby plunging a man into far deeper abysses) than physical pain.

I crave to redress injustice. I crave to reshape things that have been violently warped and twisted by my close ones; perhaps by some powerful force of the universe gone astray. I crave peace. I crave a life that will have been worth living. Can there be a better, more justified cause for one to invite death?

There is a very rampant misconception that has somehow taken a deep root in our culture though it has very little merit, which misconception states that committing suicide is a selfish act. By ending his life, they say, John Doe escapes harsh reality without giving due consideration to the pain their death will inflict upon his close ones. But do they ever stop to think of the hypocrisy of these so-called 'close ones'? This fallacious theory proposes that John Doe should keep living if only to prevent bringing tragedy to the hearts of those who will mourn his death. But if in fact those who will mourn really care about him, then shouldn't they be equally concerned about his suffering? The golden rule states that if you love someone you ought to wish only the best for them. Well, if John Doe has a life riddled with tragedies and fraught with emotional torment insofar as to bring him to the point of complete despair- in other words, if he is I, and the best for him is death- shouldn't anyone who loves him be relieved by his death? In other words, when a loved one is suffering greatly and indefinitely, you ought to mourn their suffering at least with the same intensity as you would mourn their painless death. Let me tell you what I think of the lie regarding the selfishness of suicide (and in this sense the opinion of a man on the brink of death should be accorded much greater credit than that of one whose death is located in some hazy indefinable place in the future): quite ironically, it demonstrates the selfishness of the 'close ones', who very likely know no pain, or at least none so strong it can consume a man. They act under the guise of love, but what they truly care about is keeping their own conscience clean. Our John Doe can suffer, can collapse under the anguish of life with every breath he takes, but as long as he's alive, nobody will be expected to hurt his pain. Certainly, nobody will be expected to grieve the years of happiness he's lost and the many wonders of life which have passed him by. We have this silly voice in our minds that tells us that as long as the ones we love are still with us in the sense that they share the life we share, we are at liberty to continue pursuing our own happiness and not go too far out of our way out of concern for them. But when death strikes, the rules of the game are different. The occurrence of death requires us to