I understand that people who were sighted at birth but become blind remain sighted in their dreams. I wonder if coma patients dream? But that’s selfish of me. I wouldn’t want to be maintained, to be kept, just so that I could dream. Maintaining a body, tethering a soul, just so that it can be left to dream is short-sighted, expensive, and selfish. Besides, death might be a dream. Whatever death is, I reckon it’s better, or at least more significant than a husk of a man left to dream.

Dispatch me. Send me to my maker. I couldn’t bear for people to watch me only continue to live. Continuing to live is not living. I don’t want only to take up space. Let me die.

But I’m also a coward. I don’t want to starve to death. Even serial killers get a last meal. If a serial killer can get some steak or escargot or filet mignon or cr鑪e brulee, I think that I should be dispatched the same way. No, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t want to starve to death. I understand the conflict here. I don’t want heroic efforts. I don’t want to be only maintained. But I also don’t want to starve to death. That doesn’t seem very dignified. Tell me you love me and put a pillow over my face. That should do. Feed me well. Give me some alcohol or some hallucinogens and then administer the arsenic.

We all live. We all die. We all die the same. The weapon — a gun, a knife, poison, cancer, time — doesn’t matter. Death is the leveler.

If I am incurable, if I am vegetative, if it is my time, if it is past my time, don’t waste more time or money or words: level me.

But feed me first. And take care of my dog.

SS

Witnessed by Murphy