I’m afraid to die.

I’m afraid of how I’ll die.

Once I took this sociology class in high school and we spent a few weeks learning about execution. Looking back, I’m not sure why we spent so much time discussing it, but we learned about various forms of torture and capital punishment that were now outdated (in most states and countries), such as the guillotine, or the electric chair.

The class must have affected me deeply because my father nicknamed dinnertime, “Tasha’s Death Hour.” I would play my own version of the “Which Would You Rather?” game: “I think I’d rather be drowned than hung,” I’d say as my mother would set down her salad fork with a pungent look of disgust. “When you’re drowned, you supposedly experience intense burning like you’re head’s going to explode. But, personally, I’d prefer that to having my sphincter give out.”

It took a couple of semesters’ break from sociology for me to formulate new concepts about death. In fact, I tried to avoid thinking about it at all, because when I did, my family would find me in my room, staring wide-eyed at the wall for hours wondering how any of us make it to the end without something horrific happening to us.

I was successful concentrating on life until Halloween came around. For the first time, I began to see the value of the cable hook up in my room and watch the Travel Channel. Hour-after-hour, I’d learn about haunted towns in the US and Europe and stories of their hauntings. It never occurred to me to think about what happens after death; I was only fascinated with the tales of deceit that lead to death and tormented souls (none of the spirits who stick around seem to have died of natural causes).

It took me a few weeks to recover after Halloween. I think I began to focus on life more when the Travel Channel switched from stories of hauntings to stories about the best restaurants in the Bahamas. Until then, even a swaying drapery would leave me in an irreconcilable state of dread that could only be assuaged by playing loud music and repeating to myself “This is stupid” about fifty times (really quickly and in a fetal position).

And it wasn’t until last night when I watched Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou that I began to think of death again. Several scenes scared the hell out of me; people were being murdered left and right – being shot to death, having scissors stuffed into their necks…Jean Paul Belmondo’s character was nearly drowned by having his head and face wrapped in his lover’s pretty, red dress and a portable shower head hosing down his nasal cavities.

After about two hours of these scenes, I began to think a little more philosophically than when I was in 10th grade and went to sleep after praying: God, please let me age fast so I can die happily in my sleep.

It seems that when people make it to the end without experiencing one of the many paths to death presented in Pierrot Le Fou, they’ve won some kind of a race; They’ve been luckier than most to make it from start to finish without falling into a sewer.

I’ve been thinking though, isn’t that just what life is? We are born (and unfortunately, bthat’s not a choice we have any control over) and then we die. The whole point of doing anything in life is just to make our journey more interesting and pass the time. Call me a pessimist, but it’s true. Nothing really matters except birth and death.

No way I’m having kids. I don’t want to put someone else through this ridiculous cycle. Okay, so you have a “great” life, you “accomplish” things. All that means is you’ve distracted other people really well in your lifetime, made their time of existence a little more bearable. Good for you, you’ve done a mitzvot. I say, if you don’t kill anyone and let other people get through the race peacefully, you’re a good person.

Odd that what’s managing to distract me from this crazy life cycle is watching films on death.

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