Come and Watch a Man Die!

by Kyle B. Stiff

hand-churned the mint ice cream. The audience laughed.

  “You think that inanimate matter is trying to get somewhere,” Vidmar said with utmost seriousness, methodically chopping up each almond four different ways.

  “Listen, it started out as a primordial soup,” said Matt. “There was inanimate matter in a primordial ocean, there was radiation from the sun… I mean, it was only a matter of time before it arranged itself in such a way that it formed a self-replicating strand of–”

  “Whaaaaaaaat!” cried DJ Mystikal, laughing and gesticulating wildly. “There are people walking around and going to the post office and shit, man! That is, like, the height of absurdity! You can’t explain that! If freaking aliens landed in a UFO right now, that would not even begin to approach how freaking strange and like inexplicable it is that not only is there matter made out of molecules and shit, but then that shit started like walking around, and thinking, and going to the post office!”

  “You think the universe is a great mystery, then?” said Vidmar. “A headlong rush through a carnival hall of mirrors?”

  “I don’t know dude, I guess man.”

  “And would it be possible to smash through one of the mirrors?” said Vidmar, scooping up his chopped almonds. “To see the other side?”

  “Smash through? Naw, man,” said DJ Mystikal. “It’s more like, if it’s a carnival or whatever, it would be more like one of those things where someone who works there sees you and they can just tell that you’re like, you’re like “pharmaceutical friendly” or whatever. They’re like one of the gods or somethin’. And they invite you to go behind the scenes and like chill with them, or whatever. And they let you in on how their job or their ride works while you guys are packin’ a bowl and blowin’ some smoke.”

  “And that’s what happened to the various sages and messiahs and wise men?” said Vidmar.

  “Definitely, man. And guys like John C. Lilly, too. They got high and watched molecules spinning and they knew it was a dance. All of this political shit is just a big downer. The real world isn’t like that. The real world is a miracle. You know?”

  “I agree,” said Vidmar. “Watch those pancakes.”

  Mystikal Weed laughed and there was heartfelt applause from the audience while Matt shook his head and said something inaudible. To some, the message was clear: The “modern mindset” was fashionable rather than a peak standard. Life and existence were miracles. And more importantly: Vidmar Links might have been a revolutionary figure, but he was not a political figure. Many of the guests on his cooking show went on to become like apostles. DJ Mystikal Weed 420 was arrested, charged for possession, and was killed in prison. He was hailed as a modern day John the Baptist on numerous t-shirts that proudly displayed his goofy grin alongside grainy images of his dead body.

  “His life was a miracle,” Vidmar said during an interview. “As was his death.”

  To the elites, this was enough. The common people were thinking in directions that could only add instability to the system, the precious and delicate system that kept and fed and protected everyone. The show had to be cancelled. An awkward attempt was made to drag Vidmar’s name through the dirt in various tabloids; most common people either did not care or relished the various accounts of Vidmar’s debts which were very similar to their own.

  In the last episode of his cooking show, Vidmar stopped, observed his last meal, and said, “You don’t even own your own body. Can you believe that? If you want to put a drug in your body, or marry someone, or eliminate something growing inside your own body, you actually have to ask permission from the state. You, an adult! You have to ask for permission. What a mess. What a goddamn mess. We’re being served on plates to satisfy their bottomless hunger.”

  As three o’clock neared, Sigmund searched the basement where Vidmar had spent his entire childhood. His flashlight scanned the dungeon.

  “You really think you’re some kind of messiah,” Sigmund muttered to himself. “But there’ll be no return for you. Corpse. You’ll be a corpse, old friend, won’t you.” On and on he muttered, trying to convince himself that some great and cosmic ritual of blasphemy was not being committed. He reminded himself that Vidmar’s death was completely legal and approved by some of the best men that the human species had to offer.

  He looked for clues to his unease in the dank dungeon. The owner of the house was a member of his own brotherhood; that much was certain. There were others like him that owned children, for whatever reason. Sigmund found a bookshelf full of musty comic books. There were issues of the Arjuna mini-series, which detailed the life of the heroic archer and his friend Krishna, the “hidden god”. There was a graphic novel about Odin and his battle against the giants who ruled the world… another comic series detailed the death of Christ… another series showed Quetzlcoatl dressed like a dandy fop with his rainbow feather boa, a snake coiled around one arm as he jumped from dimension to dimension teaching cavemen everything from astronomy to architecture, all the while avoiding the Galaxy Riot Police. It was all pulp garbage, stuff for young boys to wank off to and try to forget they were born into slavery. Sigmund shook his head in disgust.

  Sigmund found an etching of an Egyptian tablet hung on the wall. Hieroglyphics surrounded a small, simple image of a tomb. A translation of the hieroglyphics – or at least one layer of their meaning – was written below the image, and read,

  THE BODY OF AMON-KOTEP IS PREPARED

  HIS SOUL IS AMONG THE STARS

  Sigmund felt horror, true horror, because despite what the words said, the image itself clearly did not display a representation of the soul leaving the body. There was only the tomb, only the remains of the body. Sigmund tried to shake the feeling; he forced a laugh, and said, “The body was prepared, eh? Like one of your meals, eh, Vidmar?”

  Beside the etching was hung a typewritten letter. Sigmund felt nauseous, sick to his very depths, for it read:

  My dear son. Thank you for the kind letter. In regard to your question, no, black holes are not scary. Not in the way you are imagining. They are forces of nature to be respected. Not gateways to Hell. I am sorry that you were given a copy of that childish movie which depicted a black hole as such. Please pass it back up through the grate. Think of it like this my son. A star spews out all forms of matter during its lifetime, and even after its “death” or collapse and transformation into a black hole or neutron star or pulsar et cetera. Did you know that all the gold on earth was once inside a star. The star exploded violently and flung out the gold. Did you know that my son. That is how all heavy elements or any complicated matter was first created. Do you understand, a star is beautiful and gives life, but in order for the universe to achieve its ultimate state of complexity and perfection, stars must die. Do you understand what I mean by this my son.

  Your father, Hillel S. Chariot

  The fact that Hillel was the name of Sigmund’s own father, thus making Vidmar a sort of shadowy “half brother” to Sigmund himself, gave him only a mild twinge of annoyance. That revelation barely registered compared to the feeling of watching the other pieces of the puzzle fall into place and wiping out his own sense of self. The invisible soul leaving the body of an Egyptian god-king, the heroic comic books, the sadomasochism inherent in opening the door to the Other Side as depicted in the Hellraiser mythos, the murder of living things and ritual of “cooking” the corpses in order to turn them into something beautiful and useful, and of course the awful yearning for freedom that never died after twenty years of imprisonment – Sigmund felt the small, tiny sparks of the remnants of his own lukewarm little soul cower and drown in the presence of the terrible light given off by one infinitely greater than himself. Sigmund was one of the most powerful men in the world; he was also a worm, a legless toad croaking in shit, and he hated the world for thinking otherwise.

  Meanwhile, everyone in the gallery finally took their seats as Vidmar was stripped naked, placed in an even smaller wooden chair, then wired with electrodes. Vidmar complied with
the guards as they moved his limbs and secured the electrodes and restraints. The members of the audience studied him intently. His face was a mask, like empty skin already cast off by one who had come and gone. If he felt fear, or pain, or nausea, or giddiness, or expectation, or even joy, none could see it. A few members of the audience bowed their heads; fewer still fully understood that everyone in attendance was a simpleton who had either paid in order to see a spectacle, or paid in order to be seen by others of their kind. They were not men of depth, or reason, or of any interest to anyone outside of their small, vicious circle – and it was a sure thing that if Vidmar failed to display an emotion, certainly no one in attendance had the tools necessary to empathize with him or understand his plight in any way. Vidmar did not shout any condemnation at them or leave them with a scathing indictment of any kind. He knew they were incapable of understanding anything beyond what they could grasp in their hands. They did not even understand their own hunger to watch a man die, though this need drove them to pay an exorbitant sum.

  Finally the clock hovered near three. A guard in a fine suit stood beside a large lever on the left side of the stage. “Any last word, Vidmar Links?” he