“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” (Mark Twain)

Since insomnia has become a constant companion, I allow my mind to wander out of its gate in the early morning hours to flirt with the ridiculous. I recently discovered there’s an Italian visual artist, Salvatore Garau, who creates invisible sculptures.  His work consists of an empty space surrounded by air and requires a fertile imagination to decide what type of sculpture he had originally imagined when creating it.  In 2021, one of his inconspicuous sculptures entitled “Lo Sono” was auctioned for $18,300 USD and came with a certificate of authenticity.  Jens Haaning, the Danish artist who also dabbles in invisible art, hasn’t been as successful.  A Copenhagen court recently sided with a Denmark museum, ruling that Haaning must repay the 530,000 Danish krone the museum loaned him to commission two pieces of original art.  Haaning submitted blank canvases entitled, “Take the Money and Run.” 

The absurdities of life.  What would the world be like without those who create invisible pieces of art, or wear invisible dresses to the Grammy awards, or tell us they worship at the altar of the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster,’ and opens its prayers with “Hail Marinara?”  By 4 a.m. I’ve usually segued into “… what makes people behave in such a bizarre manner?”

I have a theory and it’s one that is reinforced in one of my all-time favorite films, “Moonstruck:”  They fear death.  It’s that simple.  When Rose Castorini informs her philandering husband Cosmo that “he’s gonna die just like everyone else,” in that moment she becomes the I-Ching of Brooklyn.  People who fear death try anything and everything to escape their eventual rendezvous with the Grim Reaper, hoping that by amassing enough money, engaging in never-ending sex or filling their life with random acts of craziness, they just might get a pass.  The Reaper may decide it’s not worth the hassle to pry them from their banana art duct-taped to a wall, for which they paid $6.24 million at a Sotheby auction.  They’ve earned a reprieve.

I can truthfully say I don’t fear death.  Oh, I have the typical apprehension as most do, but not of the destination.  I am confident in the direction of where I’m headed.  It’s the transition that causes me concern, specifically the ‘tunnel.’  If you’re one of the many individuals who have heard accounts of near-death experiences, you’re familiar with the concept of the tunnel.  The tunnel, a sort of reverse birth canal in that it serves as the first transfer to take us from this life into the next, is alleged to be encapsulated in darkness and sucks our soul through at a magically rapid speed.  Think Hoover vacuum meets Timothy Leary and Elon Musk.  It’s an alarming prospect.  And, with my earthly fear of heights and disdain for playing ‘Pin the tail on the Donkey’ as a child, will I become the silver ball in a pinball machine, ricocheting from side to side until I finally fall into the kick-out hole?

More frightening than the prospect of the tunnel is the concept of eternity, but my fingers are warning me to save it for another time.  Should I attempt to tackle it now, they’ll stick to the keyboard in a frozen anxiety, and I have errands to run.  How can something go on forever?  It boggles my mind to contemplate. Will a merciful God allow us to take naps of a million years or so as we travel the space that is eternity?

There’s no point in worry.  Que Sera, Sera.  What will be will be.  And to that man I knew many years ago who was agnostic at best, should I pass over before you and see you sitting on a bog, confused about where you are and how you got there, I promise to wave a flashlight.  Hard feelings aren’t welcome in the afterlife.