Legion of the Dead

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

A number of years ago, might be six or more now, I was busted up, broken and left for dead on the road. I shouldn't be alive right now. It took me almost a year to even believe I was alive, despite the therapy and recovery. I was gone before I hit the road and when I came back I believed that when you die, there is nothing, there was nothing before you were alive and nothing after you are dead. I took the world with me into the void where there is nothing.

I began to think about the world as if I was dead, because I found it unbelievable I had survived, something I doubt even now as I write this. Just awhile ago my GF had read a story where a local tried to commit suicide by jumping off a highway over pass. I thought about all the hopeless people who are considering taking their own life and how I might persuade them to remain alive by looking at life as if they were already dead.

It is very liberating to be dead. You have nothing, you are nothing, no worries, no concerns, nothing to make you feel anything because you and everything is gone. It isn't and never was there, so what is this problem with your life that means anything if you are already dead?

If you are that low that you would take your own life, then follow me and join the legion of the dead. I'll show you that your BS is meaningless and no matter what happens, it ain't jack shit if you weren't alive right now, so get over it because you died when you decided to end your own life.

I used to think like that before going into a fight, and you are correct, it is very liberating. It allowed me to do things that a fear of not retaining life would have prevented me from doing, and that is how I won - I did shit the other guy wouldn't even think of doing, because it might kill him. I, on the other hand, did it anyhow, because death did not matter - I was already dead.

and that gave me the edge to win.

I'm not saying give up and stop trying to make your way though life while you are alive, but that attitude will give you the edge like you describe. It detaches you from the emotion you may be feeling and allow you to act quickly and decisively.

It's like any hard work, pain and misery, it's just water off a duck's back for me now, for the most part. Why worry about anything, it's all icing on the cake for me because I should be dead.

If you had just a minute to breathe
And they granted you one final wish
Would you ask for something like another chance?

Or something similar as this?
Don't worry too much it'll happen to you
As sure as your sorrows are joys

And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound
Of the low spark of high-heeled boys