Am I dying? What does this mean, really? Why not that guy over there — a tourist feeding bread to fat pesky seagulls? Is this justice? Fate? Bad luck? Mari, Mari, suddenly I have so many questions. I always thought of death as the ultimate answer. But it’s nothing of the sort. There’s no wisdom in impending death. A terminal illness is brutal. It’s a wall. All connections, all thoughts, all actions, all the world is made meaningless, and suddenly I am doomed, and so desperately alone. But then isn’t everybody? Because, fuck, just think about it: we’re all doomed. And not a single sympathetic look, not a single sincere friendly slap on the shoulder, not a single kiss full of love can heal this bleeding wound. We are all alone, Mari, and we are all going to die. And suddenly you think to yourself: “Well damn it, I have to do something genuinely great, and quickly. And, of course, make up for all the mistakes I’ve made. And ask forgiveness of everyone I’ve hurt, and . . . and . . . the list goes on. You know, the human stuff we forget to do while we’re still alive. And after that kill myself, also preferably really quickly. I don’t want to degenerate into a mindless creature, begging for more and more painkillers or, what’s even worse, being turned into a lab rat.”

The sun slowly drifts across the smooth water. Fishermen with faces flushed by the wind have already returned to shore. Their nets are bursting with fish. They pick out the smaller ones and throw them to the dozen assorted cats waiting on the pier for their supper. Far above the coast, the giant figure of a stirring Mount Etna pulsates with fire and smoke. Check out the skeleton’s peculiar quivering fingers. They’re waving hello. They’re writing you postcards from our city. Well, howdy Mari! How are you these days? Do you want me to tell you about how dreadful death can be? The soul, reason, art, faith, kindness—death hacks up gobbets of bloody pus at them from her rattling lungs, waving away stubborn religious devotion with her bony hand. With humiliating ease, she snuffs out everything arrayed against her. Ha! Go ahead and tell the dying soldier as he lies there, choking on his own blood, looking at the ribs torn from his abdomen, that he will live on in the memory of his descendants, while his remains all the while putrefy in the grave. What will he say to that? Fuck you, death. Go ahead and tell the pneumonia patient about the immortal soul as they convulsively try to suck air into inflamed lungs, unable to breathe in the oxygen. Tell the cancer patient about divine justice. Show me Buddha, candles in hand, dancing above our unsuspecting heads, show me the saints looking over us from the clouds like we were their flock, show me the holy mountains, the cross, the totems, all the piles of sacred shit that people pray to. Show me anything that might save us from death. We can never be ready to meet her. We cling to life. Cling like a headless toad sliding off its pin on the dissection table. When death beckons, where are all our lofty thoughts of beauty, honour, courage . . . Forget that. Where is our basic human dignity even? Gone. Even a cat knows to wander off to some quiet corner and die with dignity. But human beings, they stick around to burden people around them with their senseless agony, dragging out their existence. Dignity in the face of death. Not for people.