Death And Life

(A man is sitting in front of locked doors. A hooded, dark figure comes in front of him.)

Alexander: Ahhh! Where am I? What is all this? My breath. I can’t feel it. My legs. My knees. Where am I? My body! My mind! My brain! Where am I?

(Hooded figure approaches.)

Death: Humans these days. Have no control over anything. Just keep blabbering.

Alexander: Huh! Who’s that? Who goes there?

(Does several arm actions (something like karate.)

Death: Two things are universal. The universe and human stupidity…

Alexander: …and I’m not so sure about the universe. Who are you?

Death (Cheerfully, Quickly): Hello. Bonjour. Hola. Ni Hao. My name is Death! Welcome to the doors between Life and Death, Heaven and Earth. Please take of your body parts, ohh, you’ve already been relieved of them. Great! Where do we start? So…

Alexander: Who are you again?

Death: I already told you, I’m Death.

Alexander: And I am dead. That is why I am standing between the Doors of Death.

Death (To assistant): Delete my quote of human stupidity.

Death (back to Alexander): Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, come through these doors and find the best things you’ll ever know.

Alexander: No. I don’t want to go. I want to stay alive and go back into the world.

Death: “The following action has failed. Please try again. For further assistance, please contact…”

Alexander: This is not a joke here. I am serious. Let me go back.

Death (Softly): The Dove would love to, but the Raven is under strict orders.

Alexander: What did you just say?

Death: Never mind. Anyways, why don’t you want to come in here? It is wonderful.

Alexander: No. Life is God’s creation. Death is the devil’s act.

Death: Ahhh, so that’s it. Religion these days. Ok, let’s make this clear. There is a life cycle. It is followed through processes that a living being undertakes. Death is not the last part of the process. It is just the beginning of a new part. Without Death, life isn’t possible.

Alexander: Then why is death so painful?

Death: Ok. Just define Death and life, whatever it means to you? 

Alexander: Umm, ok. Death is a painful process where umm, Life is taken away. Life is when you are happy and on Planet Earth.

Death: Hmm, not very clear without that brain. Alright, I’ll explain. Life is when you take a physical form to untangle and relieve you of your past baggage of roles, responsibilities and relationships. They call it “Karma” nowadays. There is a pre-determined time frame allotted to the form that starts from the day you are born. Death is when your time on the planet runs out. It’s something like an exam. You have a certain amount of time in which you have to complete the problems given. Whether you do them well, miss them, skip them, etc. you will anyways have to stop writing it after the time is over!

Alexander: But, if everything is already pre-planned, then why are we even living and taking this form. Why can’t we just stay dead?

Death: Two things. Firstly, until you drop out all your baggage, you will not be able to end this cycle and merge with the universe. And secondly, how you go about doing this is completely your free will and will show how much you are able to untangle

Alexander: Hmm. How does nature seem so simple yet creates such great cycles?

Death: Simplicity is the thing to live a good life. Nature is not complex, it is just that you humans have learnt so much without the fundamentals, that everything becomes difficult and requires a lot of the mind to understand the simplest of things. Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule?

Alexander: Huh, what’s that?

Death: No, please. Give respect to your elders. Anyways the 80/20 rule states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts, but the bottom 20% of the result requires 80% of the effort. There’s another part. 20% of the things in life are the fundamentals and should be given 100% effort for 100% outcome. The other 80% is plain rubbish and the effort you put in it is a waste of time. Now, “the cause of the rise of human stupidity” is that you guys try to do so much work and try to complete multifold of what you are supposed to do in a single life. Had you just focused on the 20%, you would have gotten out of this birth-death cycle ages ago. 

Alexander: Alright. Anyways, I have heard of this talk of nothing is something and all that. What is it?

Death: Hmm, so you know about it. “The fog blows away along with the stupidity.” This is a very important concept. In fact, out of the 20% of things useful, this is almost 10% of it. This is known as “flow with the flow.” It is when you are just going with the way of life. The most important flaw of humans is that you interfere too much with everything and everything. Nature’s simplicity is because it just flows with the flow. It does not interfere with the tiger who kills the deer or the deer who eats the grass, it just moves on and does nothing. Mindfulness is a way of “flow with the flow.” It is when you are present at the moment only. Not planning the future or remembering the past. You cannot change the past or decide the future. You can only decide and change what you are doing now, presently. 

Alexander: Alright. I think I understand all this. I think I’ll walk through now. 

Death: Alright, goodbye. See you later on the Planet Earth.

Alexander: What?

Death: That was what I said. “The Dove would love to, but the Raven is under strict orders.” Life and Death are the same families. They are two sides of the same coin. Without life, there is no death as there is not to die from. Without death, there is no life. If you can just keep on living without dying or leaving your form, then you would not find life important. It would become boring and its importance would go away as it is the norm.

Alexander (Murmurs to himself. Tries to understand): Life is Death. Death is Life.

Death/Life: Stupidity back. Death gone. 

(The hooded figure turns into an angel and flies away.)