Death Can Do No More Than Kill You
I have revelled in my littleness and irresponsibility. It has relieved me of the harassing desire to live, I feel content to live dangerously, indifferent to my fate; I have discovered I am a fly, that we are all flies, that nothing matters. It's a great load off my life, for I don't mind being such a micro-organism — to me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe — such a great universe, so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible--and eternal, so that come what may to my “Soul,” my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part — I shall still have some sort of a finger in the Pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me — but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you.
Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion
(Bruce Frederick Cummings)
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
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