Because I Couldn' Stop for Death

[ceasetoexist]

[Well Pokey has had a busy week. Tripping balls over hallucinogenic gas. Bothering a bunch of people and running through their yards as he tried to get away from his hallucination. Getting beaten to death. Beating to death the drone of the person who beat him to death. Getting droned for beating that person to death.

Needless to say, getting killed and then killing someone in the span of a few days has brought a question to mind.]

Hey. Yeah. I’m curious.

Like I know we don’t die here, not really since we come back…what do you all think happens to us after we really do die? Like, do you believe in a Heaven and Hell and all that jazz, or something else, or nothing at all?

Comments

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

That's right!

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

And, what? Just everyone goes there after they die, no matter what?

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

Yes, everyone.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Okay, but like....

What if someone is just a big, evil jerkwad. Aren't they worried this jerkwad would cause trouble there?

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

Nobody causes trouble there.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

But what if two people who really hated each other found one another there? Would they somehow just magically get along?

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

They don't have to like each other. But they can't kill one another, either. They'd still be happy about everything else. Everything over there is eternal.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Huh. I guess that's kind of cool, in a sort of stupid way.

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

People have hard lives where I'm from. Most of them don't live as long as I do. So why shouldn't they have a better life after this one?

And anyway, I think that whole thing about heaven in the sky is silly. There can't be lands up in the sky.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure people have hard lives everywhere.

[A pause, and then a small laugh.]

Usually, the cloud thing is a metaphor, it doesn't literally mean the sky.

But I don't believe in it either.

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

How do they know it's up there? Has anyone gone to look?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

They don't. It's belief, just like you believe wherever you think you go when you die. Though, in their history, Jesus, or the "son of God" told them for sure it's where they'd go when they died if they lived good lives.

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

Oh.

[She sighs.] I don't think I'll ever really understand all that.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Who cares if you do or don't.

It's not like it exists or matters.

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

Well, what do you think will happen to you after you die?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Oblivion.

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

What does that mean?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Effectively, I believe we simply cease to exist. There's no soul; that's just a crude, ancient name for the conscious. The mind stops working when we die, and there's just blackness. No sight, sound, feeling, or any senses. Just nothing.

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

...nothing? Nothing at all?

[brb brain breaking from this new concept]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

That'd be it.

[Just entirely unconcerned as to how odd/frightening this might seem to you, Aisling.]

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

...but that's...

[Really not sure what to think about all this.]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

....It's what?

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

...if there's nothing after death, then...my mother, she'd be...

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

......

Hey.

I could be-

Well, you know, it's possible...

I could be wrong. I don't know everything.

[That had better have helped, Aisling, because it was honestly painful just trying to say it.]

[wolf-faerie.livejournal.com]

No. I suppose not...

[It does help a little, but the thought still terrifies her.]