Good Evening

All right.


Let's talk about death.


Now, don't be squeamish; sit still and play fair.


Death.


Like birth and breathing, it is one of the very few things that 100% of us share with one another.


Everyone who was born will die.


We all know it and, at some time or other it crosses most of our minds. Not all our minds all of the time but most of them at least once.


It's not fun, is it? Frankly, it scares the living crap out of most of us.


So, why do I bring that up now? Why mention something terrible and inevitable that won't happen to most us for years and years?


Because, in a strange way, the stories, the lovely stories we tell, are all about death. Even when they're not.


The man on our left understood this. He obviously knew, when you stick "happily ever after" on the end of something, you're either lying or you don't know how the story really ends.


Mr. Hitchcock spent his life telling stories of death. He spent considerable time lending his name and face in order for others to do the same. But, like now, in this admittedly one-sided conversation between us, there was more to Mr. H's discussions of death than the dying.


There's the in-between. There's the in-between and how we play it.


There's life.


Think about it. You're definitely going to die. Today. Tomorrow. In sixty years. Definitely. No wiggle room whatsoever. It's like the great black curtain hanging at the end of a hallway and, whether you like it or not, you're going to go through.


So, immediately, the question becomes, "How?" How will you face it? Will you face it? Sure, you have to experience it, but will you actually face it, head on? If not, why not? And, also if not, how will you avoid facing it when experiencing it is a given?


Will you tell yourself to get it over with and just make a dash for for the velvet blackness?


Will you dawdle near the corridor's far side, spending far too much time examining the crayoned drawings of roses someone's left on the wall in hopes that you will draw out the best part as long as possible?


Will you dance some of the way and crawl the rest?


The choices you make about what to do with the in-between are the same ones Mr. H injected into telling his stories.


Will you watch, he asks, like Jimmy Stewart in REAR WINDOW? Will you hide like Tippy Hedron in THE BIRDS? Will you run like Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST? Will you flail and slash and embrace delusion as Anthony Perkins did in PSYCHO?


Only you know the answer and, no matter what you say out loud about it, only you will ever know for sure.


So, for Mr. H and for me, take a second and seriously think about it. Ask yourself the question.


"What am I doing with my in-between?"


We at The Dark are dying to know.