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Death: A Comedy

Nobody died. I
didn’t even die.
What makes you
so sad? There is
no direct correl
ation within these
statements.
My point is
(and come to
think of it, are

these even
statements?)
people died—of
course there
were those
who did.
But there’s
always hope. 

Isn’t there?

Yes? There’s
always hope?
Do you listen
to a lot of comedy?
Of comedians? I do.

And this seems to be a

pretty consistent theme.

Or is it just me?
No? but of course?
It’s comedy. That’s
what comedy is. It’s
hope. It’s a touchy
thing, comedy, I’m
thinking, watching
a new stand-up’s
HBO special.
How do they
get away with it?
I wonder. How
does he get
away with
this? Then,
again, I think,
oh, because it
happened in the
comedy zone. It’s
a space where this
sort of thing can be
gotten away with. Can
be accommodated. And
this gets me to thinking,
once again, of dying, of
death. Of Ireland, and
of other places in the
world I’ve never been.
But of death, of funerals
and of wakes. I can’t
handle funerals. No,
more precisely, I just
don’t go to funerals.
Funerals are not for
the (public) grief about 

which they purport to 

be. A funeral is, I find,
is mostly just public 

(Although, I suppose,

some are private,
right? Still...)
posturing.
They’re
political.
I think of
funerals

serve more

as a device

within which

to position

oneself in
relation to—
I mean, I think
of death when I
think of funerals,
of course—the
dead. They scream
“Okay, now, what do
I get from this?” Yeah.  And
maybe this is mostly my problem.
A personal problem. But a wake,
to me, a celebration of someone’s
life, where there’s drinking, there’s
laughing and there’s wailing, now
that is my idea of how to handle—
a way to execute—the passing
of someone in close proximity.
How, exactly, is death like
comedy, though? Somehow
the two seem to fit well together,
in my line of thinking, and

whether I have made it 

clear with these few lines,

I am unsure.  But this is

the stuff about which I 

wonder, and have been

for quite a while now.