Surviving Death-Neat Tricks of the Soul

The Webster stories, "Webster's Diction" , are best read in order.

This story is lecture #10, part of a series of lectures given by Professor Webster.

The lectures are ordered as follows:
#1 is "The Color of God" , #2 is "Silence in G Minor" , #3 is "Three Hats, a Blind Man and a Dime" , #4 is "Aristotle’s Pigeons" , #5 is "Waiter, There is Fate in my Soup" , #6 is "Is There a Problem Here" , # 7 is "It's a Matter of Fact"  and # 8 is "Webster and the Case of the Missing Link" , #9 is "The First Day of Forever" .

Surviving Death and other Neat Tricks of the Soul

“What is Life?”

“Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.” Carlisle bobs his head while quietly interposing the familiar lyrics.

“What is Life?” Webster repeats, with proper timing, of course.

“Baby don’t hurt me, no more.” Carlisle winks at Cabra while strumming an air guitar.

“There is no fear, like the fear of the unknown.” Webster declares, staring Carlisle in the eyes, and letting silence rule for a minute or more.

Carlisle’s eyes move ceaselessly, unwilling to focus on any one object.

“Good morning everyone.” Webster continues, as if he’d just arrived, leaving everyone, especially Carlisle, just a little anxious. “I had a great sleep last night. Sleep is life’s way of teaching you to die, don’t you think so Mr. Carlisle?”

Carlisle shrugs his shoulders, thinking instead, ‘great, so much for me ever sleeping again.’

“Socrates chose hemlock over a slice of humble pie and took great care to pay the debts incurred before he took to bed, for that long goodnight.” Webster says, with his hands in his pockets, as if looking for loose change, “Why then did he not fear death, and what did he know of justice that we don’t know?”

“I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Carlisle whispers to Cabra from the corner of his mouth, adding, “I love Woody Allen,” which only mildly corrected Cabra’s crooked smile.

“Ms. Lauren, Mr. Carlisle seems to think that the fear of dying is greater than the fear of death, do you have an opinion?” Webster asks Lauren, but looks at Carlisle, as if to say, even in death I shall hear you whisper.

“I don’t fear death any more than I fear sleep, sir, but I must admit, I do fear dying.” Lauren says, while looking at Carlisle for absent reassurance.

“We die a little each day, but we live our lives in distraction, fooling ourselves that life is fixed, and death is a thief. How many deaths have you died Ms. Lauren, how many?” Webster asks rhetorically, while brushing dandruff from his once fashionable silver-buttoned double-breasted sport-coat.

“Our life is a handful of water scooped from a raging river. Hold it up to the sun and offer purpose to a passing cloud, or press it to your lips to cool your sorrow.” Webster says in a fading whisper, as he squeezes his upper lip in an effort to hold back tears.

Webster recalls the weight of despair that raged atop his belly, in that spot below the sternum, which nature has left unfilled, but for the fears that we collect. “What is me, but what you touch, Muriel,” Webster remembers whispering into the air about her, “What is me, but what you see?”

He remembers every cell within him swelling with puzzled rage. How much better it would be if he had let himself explode, how much better it would be if he had faded into the stale palliative air. He was ashamed for his own pain, as he squeezed her fingers tight, “There is too much pain here Muriel, don’t be afraid to let go of the pain. I will be with you soon Muriel. I don’t think I’m long without you Muriel, I will see you soon.”

He remembers kissing the palm of her hand, his lips chilling in a salty pool of rage and sadness, and fear. He breathed her in, diluted in tears, and swallowed deeply to keep her safe. “My mom will know you Muriel, because you are the better part of me – she will know you Muriel and she will hold you when I no longer can.”

Webster remembers whispering into an empty room, “God Bless you Muriel.” Then, closing his eyes to still the echoes in his head, ‘How am I supposed to do this alone Muriel, how am I supposed to do this. You should have been a period in my life Muriel – you should have been a period.’ His thoughts bounced erratically in the great expanse that was his weakened state of his mind, ‘I take this woman, Muriel Bernice O’Connor, to be a period in my life. I Barnyard Webster need a period in my life, I,”

“Professor Webster, sir, Professor Webster. You were saying sir, sir?” Lauren’s voice is heavy with concern.

“Yes. Ms. Lauren, I’m sorry, I was thinking that life is but a comma in a never-ending sentence, just a comma.” Webster composes himself with a clearing of the throat, “There’s nothing fixed about it. Life is a case of perpetual motion, not a noun, but a verb – indeed, a verb”

“Life is the sum of our senses, of the things we desire, but existence is more than that – it has to be.” Webster says, staring everywhere, but nowhere, his hands still in his pocket, confirming that he is, indeed, a nickel shy for the tea he so badly craves.

“Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ not, ‘I think, therefore I live.’ I am. I am I, not me.” Webster continues, his hands now scoping his blue blazer.

“I’m sorry sir, but I’m terribly confused.” Cabra raised his hand, not waiting to be called on, “The last thing you said, you confused me, I am I, not me, I mean, I don’t understand.”

“You will recall the boaters who changed every plank on their boat while crossing a raging river; we questioned whether they arrived in the boat in which they embarked. Those planks are me, but I am the boat. The boat crossed the river, whereas the planks, well, the planks were washed away.”

Cabra’s hand has yet to rest, “Are you referring to the soul sir?”

“The soul is the light that fills our days, and trumps the darkness of night. And though there is darkness in a wink, you cannot capture light in a tin can.” Webster winks at Carlisle, who had only just now managed full distraction from his earlier fears.

“A sunflower seed will never be a rose. There is harmony to nature - what great care was taken to make Carlisle not a tree or a bird. What cause gave Carlisle the claim to say, ‘I’?”Webster closes his fist as if grabbing a fly out of thin air, “The essence of Carlisle is not in the planks, the essence of Cole is not in her eyes, the essence of Gupta will not fit in a can.” Webster continues with the closed fist before his eyes, “Ms. Lauren knew her hat was black, though she could not smell it or see it. I am more than my senses – I am before my senses, and so shall I be when I can taste no more.”

“There is harmony in nature.” Webster said, in a hopeful tone. “A sunflower seed will never be a rose, but it will germinate on a wet river bed, and its end will be its beginning – it’s only moral, don’t you think.” He looks in my direction, but I have been careful to obstruct his direct view of me thus avoiding any further conflict of interest.

“If not for the falling of Homo Erectus, we might not be here at all.”

“I should think it was the other way around.” Carlisle couldn’t help himself and quickly posted a smile as he drew wide eyes from those few who heard him, and a chuckle from the lesser few who got it.

“Thank you Mr. Carlisle for rising to the occasion,” Webster chuckled, perhaps a little too intently, as if overplaying his cards to hide a losing hand.

But laughter is infectious and soon everyone joined the mayhem, leaving it to Webster to restore order.

“In the end, I suppose, God must inhale,” Webster says, letting silence once again consume the room, causing several uncomfortable glances, ultimately broken by a rustling of chairs and an orderly exit.


Gupta’s Notes:

Gupta is unavailable this evening as he is to pick up his parents at the airport. They have returned from a winter in Kerala, where they first honeymooned at the island hotel in Thekkadi. Gupta looks forward to the impending reminiscence on the ride home, hoping the stories of their bashful meeting at Bombay University and the unorthodox unarranged marriage of a Punjabi man to a young Malayalee woman, would give him ample opportunity to bring up Cole. ‘Zimplly wunderrful,’ he hoped his mother would say, though she never did, for the warrior blood of the Gupta family, which gave his father the nerve to first try pongal, had been too far diluted by the backwaters of Kerala, and Gupta zimplly could not muster the courage.

Cole has been concerned about Webster’s prolonged memory lapses, which, of course, we all know are not lapses at all, but revivals. She decides to ask Webster to a cup of tea at the corner Chez Te, where, to Webster’s dismay, a three-dollar cup of tea is served in a polyurethane cup. Webster accepts, finding the distraction a timely welcome.

Upon thoroughly deliberating the trend in weather, Cole turned to the lecture of the day, “What do you really suppose happens when you die?”

“Perhaps you get your tea in a fine China cup.” Webster puts his cup down and shakes his burning fingers.

Cole points to the cardboard sleeve which she saw him observing inconclusively while waiting in line, and shows him how it fits, “Why is it that you never give us a straight answer, sir?”

“What a great disservice I would impart to put a sleeve around the truth. To fix truth in a word is to give up the sun.” Webster says, while looking conspicuously into the small sliver through which the only evidence of Earl Grey is steam in his eye.

Cole sips quietly, understanding Webster all too well, leaving truth where it belongs, like steam about the air.

Gupta calls Cole at a quarter ‘till ten, to ask about tea and truth, “and what about death?”

“Well, the tea was Earl Grey, the truth was evasive and death is the fertile ground from whence we all rise.”

“He said that?” Gupta’s face seemed to concave around his hand-clenched phone.

“No, he didn’t say that,” she says in a nasal exhale, “I’m just thinking back to the lecture. He clearly believes, or maybe hopes, that there is life after death. You know, he once said, ‘in the beginning there is the breath of God,’ and now, ‘in the end, God must inhale’. He suggests the survival of the soul, don’t you think?”

“I must correct you my dear Cole, not life after death, but perpetual existence. Remember, he said to Lauren, ‘how many deaths have you died?’ He’s telling us that existence is ‘perpetual motion,’ existence is a great river from which life is but a few drops. And water from a river always finds its way back.”

“I once heard that your body completely regenerates each cell every seven years or so. I suppose that’s what he meant by his reference to the boat and the planks. The body regenerates, but I am still I.” Cole points to herself, though there is no-one there to see it, “The soul has permanence, like the boat has boatness. The planks are me, you know? And the soul, the soul is I..”

“I think you’re right Cole, our body, me, is always in motion, it regenerates and craves food and water and, well, other things,” Gupta wants to say affection, but he’s still uncomfortable with talk of intimacy, “But the I., well I,” truth be told his I is not too far from his me on the craving he skirted.

“Sure, I know what you mean,” Cole lets him off-the-hook, imagining a crimson shade of brown, “Life is but a brief moment of existence. Webster says, you can capture darkness in a ‘wink.’ I think he means that life is short, and there is darkness at its end, but only briefly, like the darkness captured in a wink”

“And the soul,” Gupta interrupts, “Like the light of the sun, cannot be captured, not even by death. I think he suggests you can’t bury the soul in a casket, with the body, you know what I mean. He says, ‘you can’t capture light in a tin can,’ or something like that.”

After a reflective pause, Gupta changes tone, “So, did you ask why he doesn’t come right out and say what he means, directly, you know, like we agreed?”

“To fix truth in a word is to give up the sun.” She says, and Gupta does not respond, preferring instead to inhale the fading trace of her voice and float into the night with a slight tingle upon his scalp. ‘What is Love,’ He thinks, as he fades into the darkening room, trying unsuccessfully to keep Carlisle’s chorus from ruining the ride.

The next, and FINAL lecture in the Webster series is "It's About Time" .