Death and Boredom

Crystalbrain took a hit off of his crack pipe then flicked it across the room, where it landed on an imaginary sofa.

He said, "You know, if you smoked crack like me, you wouldn't be so fat."

"Really? Are we critiquing my weight now?" I asked.

"Well, you are fat. And I don't want you to keel over on me when we still have stuff to do," Crystalbrain said.

"And smoking crack wouldn't cause me to keel over?" I asked.

"Nah, you'd probably have a conniption fit or something, but the results are the same: you being dead and me laughing," he said.

I replied, "You would laugh at me being dead?"

"Of course, death is a big joke after all. Skulls buried in caskets six feet under dirt with a marble headstone with a couple dates on it; some priests acting like its a big deal, and people putting flowers on the ground for people that are fucking dead. It's funny to me, to see you all squirm," said Crystalbrain.

"Well, I don't like to squirm, so if you would kindly fuck off, I would be most obliged," I said.

"Nah, I'm not going to go away on this. We have some work to do on your fear of death. I mean, you have the right attitude: you don't care too much when someone dies. But for yourself, you need to rationalize it in your head. It's not that you don't really care, it's that you numb yourself to it. But you know, your own death, the idea of that happening...you really don't seem quite prepared to give in to just becoming a corpse," he said.

I replied, "Who wants to die? We're not like other animals; we know we're going to die. Who the hell wants to die? It's on our minds all the time."

Crystalbrain replied, "Yeah, well, who wants to be in the state of mind where they're constantly afraid? Let me tell you one thing about being immortal: it's damn boring. Like, there's nothing to do after a while. You just sort of pop around in various places, coming up with ways to challenge yourself. Like, you say, 'I wonder if I gave free will to this soul if I could make him do something bad of his own choice.' And then they do something bad and you laugh at them, or they do something good and you roll your eyes and move on without being entertained."

"So Good is boring?" I asked.

"Good is intensely boring. Any interesting topic of conversation has some element of badness in it. Some argument someone had with someone, some war, some fist-fight, some drug you did, some guy that got hit by a car. All potentially interesting topics of conversation. When I see people living well-ordered lives, just tending their gardens and being wholesome it bores the shit out of me," said Crystalbrain.

"And me, do I bore the shit out of you?" I asked.

"Nah, you...I got great plans for you. Yeah, it could be a trainwreck, but at least you'll make some entertaining art. Entertaining by my standards, anyways. Either way, you're an interesting being, despite appearances. There's not many people that think like you; it's a challenge to find ways to royally fuck with things through you, but I definitely have some great ideas, and you're just the type of person that would gobble them up," he said.

I asked, "Couldn't I be, you know, hurt by doing some of the things you have planned for me?"

"Of course, and that just makes it so dramatic. It's like 'Oh my God, is he going to succeed or suffer some horrific failure?' I'm just so filled with the drama of it all. It almost makes me want to continue existing," said Crystalbrain, who then faded to a silhouette and jumped into the ceiling.