Steve Howard
The Dark Optimist
2 Jul 1966 - 17 May 2004
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How will we know we are dead?
I’m not immortal. I don’t like knowing it. Far too soon. To sit and wonder, what is going to happen when it’s all over? Will it be like the blackout of my seizures? Except with those I know I lost time because I wake up again. How then is death? If there is no afterlife how do you know you’re dead? Does the brain still keep a little current going so we know we’re dead? Do we stand on the edge of the universe and look over the wall? What’s on the other side of the wall?
The difference between being mortal and immortal is urgency. An immortal has time for everything. Time for college. Time for marriage. Time for a job. Time for kids. Time for it all. A mortal knows there’s not a lot of time left. If it’s not done now it might never be done. I look at high school kids. I’ve walked in their shoes. I know what can happen without a proper education, without the skills you need. When you just ignore it all. I feel like I’m from the future, gone to the past to warn them, only none of them want to hear about it. They’re immortal.
[Am I already dead?]
Actually, let me put it this way, what if I did die at Elko? What if I’m dead now and I’m just going through some kind of purgatory requirements? There’s not really any way for me to know that’s true, or it’s not true. Maybe that’s what’s going on. Everything is just an illusion. For such cosmic portions wouldn’t be that much to do.
I don’t like to talk about dying. It’s very upsetting to me. I can’t imagine it, yet I’ve been forced by circumstances to consider what happens. I’ve been dong it three and a half years—ever since that Halloween of 1991 when I had a seizure and stopped breathing. What’s left? How can you just go pfft? In order to have an end don’t you have to have some kind of knowledge of it? What I mean is, I only know I had seizures because I came out of the blackouts. I had Point A when I last remember and Point B when I came of the wormhole of my memory. If I didn’t have that reentry how the hell could I know I had a seizure? I can’t know. . . .
So with this gap there, and only knowing by reentry—what about death? How the hell am I going to know I’m dead? Is it just over? Snap the old fingers? On an intellectual level I say, yes, that’s how it is. Has to be. There’s too much evidence to the contrary.
[How can I know I am dead if there is no reawakening?]
So what about me? How do I know I’m dead unless there’s a reawakening to allow me to see the hole? Do I just die forever? How can it just be it? I don’t see how it can, and I don’t like to think about it. As time passes it gets easier, but the fact remains I could have a seizure on Hwy 280 or 17 and that’s it. Dead. Not because of the seizure but the secondary actions it created. Just as I stopped breathing in the bowling alley. To me when you stop breathing it means you’re on your way to dying, and damn it, I didn’t get to see any bright lights or any of that shit. No, me I get to wake up with my pants missing and have an argument about what hospital I’m in, and my hands tied down so I won’t take the respirator tube out. That’s the deal I get. . . . But—and now I’m trapped between the emotion and the intellect. My heart and head.
We lie to children about this. They don’t have a clue, and neither do we, but we invent stories. As a Mormon I was told of different levels of heaven. Of how I could one day become a God myself. Then as a teenager, and now as an adult I thought it was crap, and still do. Only they didn’t tell me when you’re twenty-five you can die in a bowling alley, and be left with a philosophical question which isn’t so much philosophical as it is emotional. Not to trail off into metaphysical horseshit, I can see where it’s all coming from.
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From a screenplay:
Death and the Ice Cream Man
[by Steven S. Howard]
INT. BIG MIKE’S ICE CREAM FACTORY
BIG MIKE HAAS, owner, founder and driving force behind Big Mike Ice Cream — the Ice Cream Summer Was Invented For — is at his desk, working late again. As befits his name, and the work he does, Big Mike is a big man, but he’s a kind man too, the kind of man who is very popular, and his walls reflect the reasons why: photos of community projects from little league teams to building parks.
As Big Mike works he doesn’t notice the arrival of DEATH, who is much like the Bergman version of Death, but only because that’s the form Big Mike expects Death to take.
DEATH
Working late again Mike?
BIG MIKE
Wha—who—(as he realizes who the visitor is)—I feel fine.
DEATH
It’s not about how you feel.
BIG MIKE
Still, I do feel fine. Doesn’t that count?
DEATH
Nope. You’ll like where you are going, I promise.
I know what you’re thinking—you’re worried about your family, the business. I can’t tell you too much—Fate isn’t my department—but I promise your work was noticed, you’re a good man.
(Wishing he were in a less grim business, Death is lost in his own thoughts as he speaks.) Damn mortals. No—it’s the system that sucks.
BIG MIKE
(Big Mike clutches at his chest and shudders in pain as a major heart attack hits.) Where’s the tunnel of light?
(Death, getting to his feet and reaching out for Big Mike’s soul, pauses for a moment, annoyed, and trying to hide a smile.)
DEATH
Come on, you never believed in that shit.
Big Mike grins as Death reaches inside Big Mike’s chest and ends his pain. Big Mike’s body slumps in his chair as his soul exits his body.
* * * * *
BIG MIKE
They really got ice cream in heaven?
DEATH
Um—not as good as yours, but they’ve got beer.
Good beer. Big selection. Cause I might be Death, but I’m not dumb.
BIG MIKE
Thanks, that helps. But I can see how you might be low on friends.
DEATH
Low taste isn’t appreciated.
BIG MIKE
You are in a grim business.
DEATH
It’s a living.
BIG MIKE
You must make a killing.
DEATH
(Shy, uncertain)
Mind if I call you Big Mike?
BIG MIKE
All my friends call me that. What do your friends call you?
DEATH
People just call me the Grim Reaper.
BIG MIKE
The Grin Reaper?
DEATH
Grim—Grin Reaper. You’re still not going back.
BIG MIKE
I understand, but I have to try.
DEATH
Yeah, I guess you do. Don’t worry, you’ll be among friends. (Death is prepared to leave, then stops.) I’ve always wanted to be called Flash.
BIG MIKE
You got it Flash.
DEATH
Yeah—Flash—and Big Mike
Big Mike offers his hand to shake. Death, though not with great social skills, still picks up the cue, and shakes hands with Big Mike (who shivers slightly from the chill of Death’s touch) and Death even manages something like a smile as the two exit friends.