"My liege, I've done it! HOORAH" Screamed Melvin, barging into the throne room unceremoniously, stumbling over his cape.
Melvin. Besotted, poxy, thrice-damned Melvin. The king had had enough of him. And who the hell still wore capes? He rolled his eyes... It was so 12th century.
"What is the meaning of this?" Asked King Hazelnut, visibly annoyed. He had no time for Melvin's shenanigans.
"My liege, I have invented a mechanical bird! Man shall take to the skies in this invention and we shall explore realms far and wide!"
Typical. Leave it to Melvin to make the most unorthodox crackpot inventions imaginable when he wasn't under adult supervision.
Melvin Whatshisface was an eccentric younger brother to one of Hazelnut's powerful lords; Lord Whatshisface. One day, said lord requested that Melvin be granted any position in the king's retinue, to "honor the family name and strengthen ties between the families". Seeing as they were very close personal friends, the king accepted, but was now beginning to suspect that Whatshisface had more sinister motives to want Melvin as far away from his castle as possible. If it wasn't for their friendship, he would have had Melvin flogged, himself.
For one thing, he was always in his "lab", working on prototypes for inventions no one asked him for. More often than not, he blew up his chamber, and sometimes they found him passed out in a pool of what looked like vomit and smelled like apple pie. Once, they found blue smoke streaming from under his door, and when they walked into the room they found him upside down in a cauldron full of ale screaming "SPRING BREAK WOOOHOOOOOO". The man was insane. Bearing that in mind, you'll understand why the king was skeptical about his revelation.
"CHARLES!" called out Hazelnut.
"Your Majesty!" A burly pikeman kneeled in front of the throne, looking apprehensive. Last time he was asked to handle Melvin, they found him sprawled face-down on Melvin's bed five hours later, wiggling his feet and talking about boys. He still had no idea what Melvin had given him.
"Escort Melvin to his quarters. It appears he has been drinking his urine again." yawned the king.
The Queen cleared her throat.
Charles was just starting to get up when Melvin pushed him. When you're wearing steel armor that weighs 50 kilograms, and a man pushes you, you fall. And when you struggle to get up, you look comically like a cockroach trying to get off its back. As Charles wiggled on the floor trying to grab hold of any edge to hoist himself up, Melvin continued his speech like nothing happened.
"My liege, I beg the honor of escorting you to the courtyard, where my invention is ready for your highness. I assure you, I've already tested it several times, and it is almost as safe as being flung from a catapult. You have my word."
The Queen cleared her throat.
"Melvin, if you pick on Charles again I will have you flung from a catapult and you can tell me how safe it is, then. He is the captain of my guard for God's sake, and if I have to overhear him complaining to William again about how "mean" you are to him, I'll have him flung with you."
"But my liege, the mechanical bird awaits! The sky's the limit! Literally!"
The Queen cleared her throat.
"Is my Queen well, or should I send for the physician?"
Queen Latifah smiled, and said: "I thank you for your kindness, your majesty, but there will be no need for that. Perhaps my liege would like to inspect this contraption for himself? Surely it would be more entertaining than Charles's worm dance"
The king groaned. Of course she'd say that, her last name was also Whatshisface.
"Very well. Charles, I command you to stop wriggling."
Out of the hall, down five flights of stairs, through an entrance hall and out into the courtyard they went. Hazelnut paused at the entrance of the courtyard, taken aback at the strange sight before him. It looked like an immense white tube, with what looked like fixed wings on either side.
"Melvin, where did you find this?"
"During one of my experiments, I tested the hydrodynamical resistance of the coefficient of-" Melvin began, but the king cut him off
"You have no idea how you summoned this, do you?"
"Not even a slight one, my liege" He seemed very proud of the fact.
"How have I not noticed this before?" Asked Hazelnut.
"My liege, I've been leading a huge workforce to flatten a very long patch of land to create a port for this device. I have flown it three times over the past week alone, and its shrieks are loud enough for the devil himself to bang his broomstick on the roof of hell yelling "SOME OF US HAVE WORK IN THE MORNING". I would not presume to give offense but you are not a very attentive king, your grace." Melvin smiled. Hazelnut wanted to punch him.
"And how have you learned to fly it?" He asked, dumbfounded.
"It came with an instruction manual!" Said Melvin with a note of derision, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.
"Does anyone else know about this?" Asked the king.
"Surprisingly not, your grace. The middle ages are a very fun time to have a secret; people thought the shrieks were coming from hungry dragons and no one seems to look twice at the bird. I believe it is invisible to everyone else unless I point it out to them. Hey, don't look at me, that's the crappy story the writer came up with to justify this"
"What writer?"
"Never mind your grace, would you like to ride the bird?"
And so, the king boarded the plane with Melvin, and they took off to parts unknown. The Queen mourned her lost king for years and years, not knowing that he was living far away in the arms of five other hoes, partying all day and night with Melvin and being the old-timey equivalent of a rockstar. True Story.
The Queen blamed herself. He had disappeared the minute she asked him to see Melvin's invention, and she couldn't believe she was the reason he died. The fact that her name was Queen Latifah was no longer funny. Anyway, if she knew where he was, it would make no sense for her to mourn, right? He was alive and well, so what's the point?
Now think of the plane as a metaphor for death, and reread the story because it's funny as hell.
____________________________________________________________________________
Why do we hate death?
Fear of the unknown.
Think about it. If there was a way for you to contact your deceased loved ones, you wouldn't fear death. And why would you? About 3 centuries ago, travelling overseas was equal to a death sentence. You couldn't contact your loved ones, and the distance was so great that families said their goodbyes to their travelling relatives, fully expecting never to be reunited again. Does that mean that those relatives died the minute they boarded the ships? As far as their families were concerned they did, because they would never see them again... and yet they still lived in some remote corner of the planet. Far and unreachable... but alive. I, for one, want to board the ship. It can't be worse than reality. I believe that the dead live on in a place unknown to us, much like the Americas were unknown to the Europeans in the 13th century... We just don't know how to reach them. Yet.
As JK Rowling once said (through Albus Dumbledore's lips): "For the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
Modern human beings pride themselves on their rationality. We think, evaluate, and make "logical" decisions and judgments. Yet for all our intelligence, we have an irrational fear of the unknown. Death is final. Death is real. Death is a part of life. We don't seem to want to understand that... ignoring a hard truth is easy. We want to believe that we are invincible, untouchable, unyielding... But the fact of the matter is we have a very constricting limit called "death". In fact, it is a testament to sheer human willpower that we have managed to thrive for this long without imploding (well, I wouldn't say "thrive", Egypt is imploding already. But you get the gist). We survive. We build. Our species stares death in the eye every day, roaring its defiance, determined to survive... and this is why death has gone from being our limit to being the ultimate source of our strength. But even though we have left our mark on death, it will win every time. No one beats death, least of all humans, with our insignificant life spans.
We are fragile. We are weak. We are hollow.
We are human.
Embrace it.
Melvin. Besotted, poxy, thrice-damned Melvin. The king had had enough of him. And who the hell still wore capes? He rolled his eyes... It was so 12th century.
"What is the meaning of this?" Asked King Hazelnut, visibly annoyed. He had no time for Melvin's shenanigans.
"My liege, I have invented a mechanical bird! Man shall take to the skies in this invention and we shall explore realms far and wide!"
Typical. Leave it to Melvin to make the most unorthodox crackpot inventions imaginable when he wasn't under adult supervision.
Melvin Whatshisface was an eccentric younger brother to one of Hazelnut's powerful lords; Lord Whatshisface. One day, said lord requested that Melvin be granted any position in the king's retinue, to "honor the family name and strengthen ties between the families". Seeing as they were very close personal friends, the king accepted, but was now beginning to suspect that Whatshisface had more sinister motives to want Melvin as far away from his castle as possible. If it wasn't for their friendship, he would have had Melvin flogged, himself.
For one thing, he was always in his "lab", working on prototypes for inventions no one asked him for. More often than not, he blew up his chamber, and sometimes they found him passed out in a pool of what looked like vomit and smelled like apple pie. Once, they found blue smoke streaming from under his door, and when they walked into the room they found him upside down in a cauldron full of ale screaming "SPRING BREAK WOOOHOOOOOO". The man was insane. Bearing that in mind, you'll understand why the king was skeptical about his revelation.
"CHARLES!" called out Hazelnut.
"Your Majesty!" A burly pikeman kneeled in front of the throne, looking apprehensive. Last time he was asked to handle Melvin, they found him sprawled face-down on Melvin's bed five hours later, wiggling his feet and talking about boys. He still had no idea what Melvin had given him.
"Escort Melvin to his quarters. It appears he has been drinking his urine again." yawned the king.
The Queen cleared her throat.
Charles was just starting to get up when Melvin pushed him. When you're wearing steel armor that weighs 50 kilograms, and a man pushes you, you fall. And when you struggle to get up, you look comically like a cockroach trying to get off its back. As Charles wiggled on the floor trying to grab hold of any edge to hoist himself up, Melvin continued his speech like nothing happened.
"My liege, I beg the honor of escorting you to the courtyard, where my invention is ready for your highness. I assure you, I've already tested it several times, and it is almost as safe as being flung from a catapult. You have my word."
The Queen cleared her throat.
"Melvin, if you pick on Charles again I will have you flung from a catapult and you can tell me how safe it is, then. He is the captain of my guard for God's sake, and if I have to overhear him complaining to William again about how "mean" you are to him, I'll have him flung with you."
"But my liege, the mechanical bird awaits! The sky's the limit! Literally!"
The Queen cleared her throat.
"Is my Queen well, or should I send for the physician?"
Queen Latifah smiled, and said: "I thank you for your kindness, your majesty, but there will be no need for that. Perhaps my liege would like to inspect this contraption for himself? Surely it would be more entertaining than Charles's worm dance"
The king groaned. Of course she'd say that, her last name was also Whatshisface.
"Very well. Charles, I command you to stop wriggling."
Out of the hall, down five flights of stairs, through an entrance hall and out into the courtyard they went. Hazelnut paused at the entrance of the courtyard, taken aback at the strange sight before him. It looked like an immense white tube, with what looked like fixed wings on either side.
"Melvin, where did you find this?"
"During one of my experiments, I tested the hydrodynamical resistance of the coefficient of-" Melvin began, but the king cut him off
"You have no idea how you summoned this, do you?"
"Not even a slight one, my liege" He seemed very proud of the fact.
"How have I not noticed this before?" Asked Hazelnut.
"My liege, I've been leading a huge workforce to flatten a very long patch of land to create a port for this device. I have flown it three times over the past week alone, and its shrieks are loud enough for the devil himself to bang his broomstick on the roof of hell yelling "SOME OF US HAVE WORK IN THE MORNING". I would not presume to give offense but you are not a very attentive king, your grace." Melvin smiled. Hazelnut wanted to punch him.
"And how have you learned to fly it?" He asked, dumbfounded.
"It came with an instruction manual!" Said Melvin with a note of derision, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.
"Does anyone else know about this?" Asked the king.
"Surprisingly not, your grace. The middle ages are a very fun time to have a secret; people thought the shrieks were coming from hungry dragons and no one seems to look twice at the bird. I believe it is invisible to everyone else unless I point it out to them. Hey, don't look at me, that's the crappy story the writer came up with to justify this"
"What writer?"
"Never mind your grace, would you like to ride the bird?"
And so, the king boarded the plane with Melvin, and they took off to parts unknown. The Queen mourned her lost king for years and years, not knowing that he was living far away in the arms of five other hoes, partying all day and night with Melvin and being the old-timey equivalent of a rockstar. True Story.
The Queen blamed herself. He had disappeared the minute she asked him to see Melvin's invention, and she couldn't believe she was the reason he died. The fact that her name was Queen Latifah was no longer funny. Anyway, if she knew where he was, it would make no sense for her to mourn, right? He was alive and well, so what's the point?
Now think of the plane as a metaphor for death, and reread the story because it's funny as hell.
____________________________________________________________________________
Why do we hate death?
Fear of the unknown.
Think about it. If there was a way for you to contact your deceased loved ones, you wouldn't fear death. And why would you? About 3 centuries ago, travelling overseas was equal to a death sentence. You couldn't contact your loved ones, and the distance was so great that families said their goodbyes to their travelling relatives, fully expecting never to be reunited again. Does that mean that those relatives died the minute they boarded the ships? As far as their families were concerned they did, because they would never see them again... and yet they still lived in some remote corner of the planet. Far and unreachable... but alive. I, for one, want to board the ship. It can't be worse than reality. I believe that the dead live on in a place unknown to us, much like the Americas were unknown to the Europeans in the 13th century... We just don't know how to reach them. Yet.
As JK Rowling once said (through Albus Dumbledore's lips): "For the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
Modern human beings pride themselves on their rationality. We think, evaluate, and make "logical" decisions and judgments. Yet for all our intelligence, we have an irrational fear of the unknown. Death is final. Death is real. Death is a part of life. We don't seem to want to understand that... ignoring a hard truth is easy. We want to believe that we are invincible, untouchable, unyielding... But the fact of the matter is we have a very constricting limit called "death". In fact, it is a testament to sheer human willpower that we have managed to thrive for this long without imploding (well, I wouldn't say "thrive", Egypt is imploding already. But you get the gist). We survive. We build. Our species stares death in the eye every day, roaring its defiance, determined to survive... and this is why death has gone from being our limit to being the ultimate source of our strength. But even though we have left our mark on death, it will win every time. No one beats death, least of all humans, with our insignificant life spans.
We are fragile. We are weak. We are hollow.
We are human.
Embrace it.
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