In the eighth part of\u00c2\u00a0Reaper Man<\/i>, Death ponders death. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For talk of death, suicide<\/b>.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not easy to think about death.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been creeping up on me lately as more and more people I know pass into the great unknown. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d lost friends in high school \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to gang violence, to suicide, to alcoholism, to drunk drivers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and I lost a friend to HIV in college. My father passed in 2006; I watched friends wither away from disease and illness. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to suggest that I have experienced death more than anyone else, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever had a chance\u00c2\u00a0not<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to think about it, except when I was younger. But I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall ever giving it a serious thought until my father passed. Even then? I thought more about grief and absence than anything else. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel any reluctance when stating that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think anything happens after we die, and that was definitely the case when my dad died.<\/p>\n
Despite that I am not alarmed by my belief in nothingness, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve started wishing I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to die. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an absurd thing to spell out, but I have so much I want to do in life, and I certainly feel like the clock is ticking, louder now than a year ago, ten years ago, twenty. How much more time do I have left? Am I wasting my time? That crosses my mind a lot, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0think<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0I am. I know that motivates me to pursue experiences that are rewarding and exciting. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d definitely quantify this whole Mark Reads thing as one of those adventures!) But is it always going to haunt me? Is it going to get worse?<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so fascinated by these very questions that are addressed through Death\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience as Bill Door. This is the first time that Death has ever\u00c2\u00a0truly<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0thought about what death is. Since he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never been able to even comprehend what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mostly horrified and existentially challenged by its existence. He finds rat poison offensive. He believes he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a murderer for eating chicken. Then he has an eye-opening conversation with Sal Lifton, the child from earlier who knows he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually a skeleton. (It took every ounce of willpower not to call him a skellington.) I think that child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s innocence and bluntness forces him to accept what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening to him. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dying. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0going<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to die. And to expand on that, everyone around him is going to die, too, including Sal Lifton. That seems such a strange thing for Death, of all characters, to realize, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never killed prior to this. Death was just a part of his job, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never been on the other side of it. To him, death was inevitable fate for everyone, so it was never\u00c2\u00a0personal<\/i>.<\/p>\n
So when Sal gets trapped in a fire at the local inn, he has to accept that this inevitable fate\u00c2\u00a0hurts<\/i>. It hurts people, it destroys lives, and in the case of Miss Flitworth, Bill Door\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apathetic take on death offends her. It all seems so impossible to Death because he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine how anyone could live a life knowing that it all ends, and so\u00c2\u00a0soon<\/i>. That sense of existential dread haunts Death. How is he going to get over that? Perhaps saving Sal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life will help.\u00c2\u00a0Can<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0her life be saved, though? That whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153borrowed time\u00e2\u20ac\u009d line is both a clever pun and a horrible clue. Did Death give part of\u00c2\u00a0his<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0time to keep Sal alive?<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my guess. Props to those who worked on the splits for this book because I loved that this was almost entirely about Death. It flowed really well as its own piece. Sure, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a brief update about Windle and his bizarre, aimless quest alongside Schleppel and Lupine, but this is all about Death. And death. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear now that Death\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fears precipitated in that dream that opened this section. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d love to return to that world, you know? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comforting. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certain. But\u00c2\u00a0can<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0he? It would have been too easy for him to be given his job back just because it was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mistake.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine this is how the rest of this book will go. And shit, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still half a book to go! I love when I have no idea where a story is going to go, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n
The original text contains use of the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153crazy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stupid.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vV38YksdCmE<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– Please help book\/finalize the Mark Does Stuff European Tour!<\/a> In the eighth part of\u00c2\u00a0Reaper Man, Death ponders death. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,496,248],"class_list":["post-3401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-reaper-man","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>.
\n– The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of\u00c2\u00a0The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"