Comfort

A short contemplation on the phenomenon of death on a social being.

         There’s a comfort in death. When someone dies everyone gets real quiet.
You can sort of figure how close someone was to the dead guy
by how quiet they get.
And for how long.
         Lots of people get quiet when people die. And for more reasons than just because they knew him. We take a minute to process. Like a computer uploading a major update to the operating system, an entire part of our brains – the part that does – just doesn’t for a while. You can’t reach the operating system anymore, but the computer is powered up – the brain is not without activity. I don’t know, what do you call it? The Ego part – the operating system. Damn it, the part of your brain that
goes to parties and gossips about people,
solves complicated problems,
and mouths the answers to Jeopardy questions
at home
on the sofa.

That part of your brain gets attenuated. It gets quiet for a bit. There's comfort in it.