AS I GREW UP my parents were supportive, accepting, and unconditionally loving toward my sister and me. All we really needed we had at our disposal, and all we sought to do was constantly encouraged. And you know what? Today I’d like to strangle the bastards.
Consider my boyhood friend Tommy from down the street. His mom used to throw dishware at him when he was seven during her frequent screaming marathons. I was there to see it more than once. Tommy got no support for college, was called a loser all his life, and I really think that one of his uncles molested him. Where’s he today? Tommy is COO of some big goddamn wireless communications company. And you know why? Because he’s spent all these years in healthy, productive resentment and hatred, trying to prove himself to a world that never gave him shit.
And then look at me. I spent a year in Europe after dropping out of college because it “bored” me, then I ran out of money and moved into the attic over my parents’ garage for most of my 20s, smoking too much weed and working as a dishwasher, janitor, warehouse worker, and now the shit-eating administrative assistant I am today. Why’d I live like that? Because not every single thing I wanted was nurtured into being for me, a fact so frigging shocking to me that I was left like a doe in the headlights.
And let’s not even talk about my sister – hell, one time she even offered to suck me off for crack money. No, let’s stick to the important point. If you have a child, and like any good parent you love that child and wish him the best throughout life – please, I’m begging you, tell him he’s a loser and a shit, that he’s a retard and the result of an accident with the milkman. Take aside some quality time now and then with your little one to smack him for doing something you ordered him to do earlier. Or if time’s tight, try to keep in mind all the little things, like grabbing him and putting out a cigarette on his arm. Take it from me: he can go on resenting you for the rest of his healthy, wealthy, and well-adjusted life.
ADDRESSING HIS FOUR students, a Zen master asked, “Tell me, what is the way of the warrior?”
The first student answered: “The way of the warrior is strength of heart, succor to the victimized, acceptance of adversity, loyalty to truth.” The master smote the student on the head with a stick.
Moving on to the second student, the master asked, “Tell me, what is the way of the warrior?”
The second student replied: “The way of the warrior is strength as it is bravery, for the both are one. Strength is the bravery of the flesh in the face of rigor and suffering. Bravery is the strength of the soul in the face of duress and doom.” The master smote the student on the head with a stick.
Moving on to his third student, the master asked, “Tell me, what is the way of the warrior?”
The third student answered: “The way of the warrior is the way of vanquishing one’s adversaries by vanquishing one’s self, the way of accomplishing dominion by eliminating passion, the way of becoming powerful in spirit while placid in deed.” The master smote the student on the head with a stick.
Moving on to the fourth student, the master asked, “Tell me, what is the way of the warrior?”
The fourth student shuffled uncomfortably in place. Blinking nervously, he said: “Well, I suppose it involves going round hitting people on the head with sticks.”
“Ah,” the zen master exclaimed, “One of you was paying attention!”
RANDALL WAS DEAD. As his body fell limp on the ER bed, his mind drifted into a new and undiscovered space. Ahead of him stretched a luminous corridor of indefinite length. He was moving through it steadily, whether floating or walking he wasn’t sure: he didn’t even think to check whether he still had a body.
Presently a figure appeared at the end of the corridor, and Randall drew slowly toward it. It was more or less a person, yet wholly unlike any human Randall had ever seen. Proportion was out of joint, and the figure seemed both amiably statured and impossibly immense.
“Are you god?” Randall asked.
“Oh, good grief no,” the figure replied.
“An – angel?”
“Certainly not.”
“Death?”
“Not really.” The apparition squinted a little, deciding how to express itself. “I’m a sort of – system utility. In your brain. Throughout your life I’ve been dormant, quietly collecting data, and was only triggered to launch now, as your system shuts down. You see, I have a sort of report to deliver to you… a summation of everything you’ve done.”
Randall was flustered. “So you’re like – my life flashing before my eyes?”
“Quite like that, yes,” the apparition nodded. “So let’s get down to business.”
“Wait, what about the afterlife?”
The figure shook its head. “No such thing. So this report –”
“No such thing?! Then where are we now?”
“‘We’ reside in the maelstrom of synaptic misfirings accompanying the asphyxiation of your brain’s neurons. So anyway, I have this report to deliver….”
Randall felt dazed, bloodless. He swallowed, though he couldn’t be sure he had a jaw or throat. “Okay,” he rasped.
“Good. So, Randall T. Erickson, your postnatal life spanned thirty-eight years, eight months, six days, nineteen hours, forty-eight minutes, and nineteen seconds. During that time, you digested 14,379 metric tons of food, averaging 2.2 kilograms per day, comprising .314 tons of vegetables, 6.914 tons of meat, and 8.762 tons of carbohydrates and indeterminate sugary matter. You drank 34,836 liters of fluid, averaging 1.8 liters a day, comprising 8,419 liters of coffee, 4,844 liters of water, 11,892 liters of alcoholic beverages, and 14,673 liters of miscellaneous soft drinks.”
The apparition glanced at its watch. “Oh dear. The brain damage is spreading fast. I’m going to have to pick up the pace.” It began leafing through an enormous sheaf of papers. Randall was dizzy; the space around him throbbed with psychedelic colors; he wished he had a body again so he could lie down.
“Lessee… 43,806 hours spent at work and 26,290 at school, 108,212 hours spent sleeping, 9,106 hours excreting… you seemed to spend quite a lot of time on the pot, Randall…; uh, 3,619 hours stuck in traffic, 3,847 hours watching television commercials, 724 hours reading or studying, 226 hours in copulation or foreplay –”
“Is that all?” Randall shrieked, “226 hours?!”
The apparition double-checked the figure. “Afraid so. About six percent of the time you spent watching television. It was… 852 sex acts in all, approximately one every 12 days of your active sex life, each lasting something like twenty minutes. I don’t think you ever made it past half an hour. Oh – and there were 10,212 hours of masturbation.”
“I can’t believe this!” Randall screamed. He was in an indescribable state. He wished he were dead.
“We really are running out of time,” the apparition murmured. “I’ve been preparing these data for thirty-eight years, and I only get forty seconds to present them all. My, my. Let’s see – 143 hours clipping your nails… 87 hours searching for keys or other small lost items… 687 hours playing video games on the computer at work… and – this is minor but interesting – you spent two solid hours in 1981 arguing that Air Supply is a better band than Abba.”
“But what about important things?!” Randall wailed, “like – being in love, or having important… insights, or religious experiences, or things like that?!”
“Uh… 41 hours. By coincidence, that’s exactly how long you spent washing your car.”
Randall shrieked, flailed his arms, gnashed his teeth. He was blinded with pain, numbness, and frothing explosions of color.
“Hey, it was your life,” the apparition remarked sensibly. “If you didn’t want to do that stuff, why’d you do it? Anyway, you still have thirteen seconds left.”
Randall calmed down as best he could. “Thirteen?” he asked.
“Well, twelve now.”
“Do you think –,” Randall gasped, “is that enough time to masturbate again?”