Death Wears a Suit and Tie
When Death comes to town, do they relish their task? Do they feel sorrow and guilt over their grim appointment? Do they feel completely unequivocal as — no matter how rich or how poor, how good or how bad, — they will eventually knock on every door. How do they view themselves? Are they a force of nature, or an individual power?
When we think of Death, what do we see? Some behold a hooded figure, holding the scythe of the peasants who suffered and died en masse. All under the ruthless and unforgiving greed of their highborn neighbours. Some picture a man in casual clothing: a regular person endowed with the infinite task of expiration. Some, a man in a suit and tie. The last I find the most intriguing as, despite his morbid charge, he works with a business-as-usual attitude. This draws a similarity with the consumeristic, corporate world we have come to call home. This serves as a reminder that, in all aspects, we are not in control. It is a man in a suit and tie who controls the world - who controls us. We do not like this depiction. We want to imagine ourselves as masters of our own reality, as gods among the lesser beings surrounding us. Yet, we still bow to those in the suit and tie.
Does this image startle? Maybe, maybe not. Many fear Death for he is the end, the termination of being, the ceasement of existing. Total black. This fear is why many religions and cultures have an alternative: heaven, reincarnation, ghosts. Even hell, a realm of eternal suffering and pain is better than the terrifying jaws of utter, complete nothing: the permanent loss of what little control we like to imagine we have.
Sometimes, when we look into a sunset, at the ceiling above us before we sleep, into the eyes of someone we love, we think, ‘This will end someday’: But when we keep going, when we say to the void, ‘Well, you can’t have me yet, so allow my wallowing in imagination a while longer,’: we show the true resilience of our minds: the complete ability to shut away things that we will always have to face. Just like heaven, just like hell, there will always be something: even knowing there isn’t.
This willful ignorance is fending off a form of cosmophobia, ordinarily the fear of space. This idea that, no matter how far you go, you will just keep going: never stopping, never going back. Just endless black. The terror of realising that you can do nothing, you cannot move, you cannot see, hear nor think. The total annihilation of everything you have ever known. It is this lack of control that startles, not Death himself. Death is simply a gateway, a middle man, a guide, a thief. If we fear this, we may forget the black – the forever nothing – and we may be able to live on, unbound by the fear of the forever void. We may be able to master our own world: a world without suffering. For we are all the peasants, and we crave the power of the scythe to be given onto our unworthy hand. We, alone, shall wield this authority. We will don the suit and tie.
We may tremble and sway under the jurisdiction of the man now, but one day we shall rise. We shall take what is rightfully ours. Death knows this. He does not relish his task. He does not feel sorrow. He does not feel indifferent. He remembers. He witnesses our lives, thoughts, wants and woes like a memory. Constantly rewinding. He knows how it feels to fear him: for he is us, for we have become Death. The man in the suit and tie; we have risen, and as a result, we have fallen. Now we are Death; destroyers of ourselves.
