Message-ID: <40606asstr$1043644204@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: From: Jack C Lipton X-Original-Message-ID: <20030126213020.2df9f34c.cupasoup@softhome.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 21:30:20 -0500 Subject: {ASSM} Exit Interview (nosex, angst, reflection) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 00:10:04 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: hecate, Lambchop For those who are curious, yes, I do get severe bouts of depression. This has been on my site for a while and I figured I'd take this opportunity to spread my mental illness. And, yes, I sometime do feel this way. Author: Jack C Lipton Title: Exit Interview Part: Universe: Summary: only *mostly* dead, not completely dead Keywords: nosex, angst, reflection Revision: $Revision: 1.9 $ Exit Interview by Jack C Lipton I hurt all over. I was tired. I... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * It seemed certain to me that I must be dead. Two items supported this assessment: 1) I felt no pain; and 2) My hand went through my cubicle wall. Granted, there was the possibility I was simply dreaming that I was dead but I don't remember ever dreaming when asleep. The world seemed to be paused as I stood over a slumped body that looked like ... me. It seemed that there was no light left in those eyes. Even in the silent stillness of the world, I saw someone identical to myself walk up to me. Why would...? We've been told that we were created in his image but few believed. I believed now. I saw this glorious version of the dull, drab creature I'd been. The voice sounded like mine, only it was oh so pleasing to my ear... "You're not supposed to be dead. It was not yet your time. Your death is not yet a fact; We're talking between one heartbeat and the next. You may yet choose to live." I didn't have to think about it; I'd been so depressed for so long that the body below me was neglected; Life would be, for me, a return to misery. I wasn't too keen on losing this release from pain. "I'd be happy to be dead, Lord. Death is no punishment. My life has been long enough." "You've not lived much in your life. There is more to life, you know, than what you've lived so far. Yes, you've used the fruits of some of the gifts you'd been given. We have not been unhappy with you, yet there is more you should do." Waving at the body in front of me, slumped over in the cubicle, "I've neglected your gift of life. I've neglected my family. I've neglected my wife. I've no enthusiasm. This workplace is the only place where I've experienced peace." "There will be those who will miss you." I nodded, "Just as I've missed those who've died before me." I shrugged. "And it doesn't really matter since it has to happen anyway; Only timing would be different." "Let's take a look at some of these people who will be affected by your early death." We were now standing in my parents' living room, both my father sitting watching the History channel and my mother reading the paper, frozen in place. "How do you think they will feel to outlive their son?" I shrugged, though it stung a bit. If I died now I'd avoid any chance of having to face that kind of loss. Dying now, my children would certainly outlive me, as I would hope they would. So how could I want to inflict the pain on my parents. Already I was starting to get unsure of my stance. "We'll skip your siblings. To be honest, they'd have mixed feelings. How about your wife?" We were standing in someone's living room, a woman seated in the room frozen in the act of masturbating. "Uh, this isn't my wife..." He looked around, smiled at me. "Well, this was just one of those that could have been your wife. Lets..." We were in my bedroom, my wife asleep in the bed. She'd been having problems sleeping at night. "What of her, won't your passing be hurtful to her?" "Well, she'll miss having me come running everytime she calls me from the other end of the house to get her a drink, or to answer the phone, door or to chase our daughter when she's out playing with her friends." "Wouldn't she be hurt?" "Only by the loss of a servant." "That's not how it's meant to be. Have you no authority?" "I ceded her the household authority though I retained some veto power. She's been so badly burned by people who had authority over her and I cared for her so much that I couldn't bear the pain she felt. It was easy because I'm not a particularly assertive man." "And you don't..." The good thing about being dead is that you know what you're being asked. Without it being spelled out. "No we don't. She doesn't want our daughter accidentally exposed to us doing that. If my wife is so certain it's evil, I've learned that I can't change her mind. It's so much easier on me this way. She's less able to manipulate me through guilt. So even when she talks as if she's nterested I avoid her. If it wrong at one time in particular, it should be wrong all the time." Since we were insubstantial, He walked through the bed to look at her from all angles. "Does she love you?" What a question. Despite my ethereal state, I wasn't under any illusion that I could answer it accurately. I could only shrug; "I don't have the option of living in her head. She tells me she does but my heart has doubts. She points to our children and tells me that she'd not have had my children if she didn't love me. This was also the same woman who didn't want to get pregnant by me but told me that if she'd been impregnated by a rapist she'd keep the baby. So I don't know." We were in my daughter's 3rd grade classroom, the children frozen in a moment with some holding their hands up. My daughter was sitting there, looking attentive. "How will she feel losing her daddy like this?" "She still has her mother, who has told me that she's been both the mother and father to all of her children. So she won't need me, will she?" We were back at my workplace, standing in my manager's office. "Yes, I know it'll leave him short-staffed. If he can use it as a wake-up call for the chronic understaffing of these kinds of groups then so much the better. Yes, I'll be missed, but someone else can step into my place soon enough." We were in the cubicle, not even in the company where I worked, I could tell that much, of a young and very pretty woman. I didn't know her or recognize her at all. It was certain to me that my body would have wanted to know her ... in the biblical sense. This did bother me. "And..." "Uh, Lord, I don't know who she is. Why are we here?" "You should have children by this woman." I started to laugh. He didn't join me. It took more than a trivial amount of effort but I managed to stop laughing. "I'm already married. It wasn't until my mid-twenties before I found a woman to wife and finally lost my virginity. Why would you think a beauty like her would be interested in a dead man like me? I'm over twice her age, I have step children older than she is, I'm not attractive, I'm not even slightly desirable ... I've got a long list of things that I'm not. That includes not being in her league, too. Other than a slightly bigger paycheck I've got nothing someone like her would want. "On top of all that, even when I was alive and had a working sex drive I wouldn't take any chances at violating my wedding vows. Those I take quite seriously and I believe my wife does, too." He nodded at me, "You'd be surprised how this can work out." Now color me stupid: It's not wise to disagree with one's maker. I didn't know when to shut up now, any more than I did when still alive. "I've carried too many self-destructive tendencies to excel at anything enough to be noticed. I've neglected myself so that I can die just from fragility by narrowing the margin between health and death. It's only finally getting an infection my body couldn't handle and ignoring it's growth that allowed us the time to talk. I've seen others who had really serious problems neglect themselves, since it isn't treated as suicide. This isn't a case of me killing myself, I just made my own death easier. So, if you want to throw me into Hell, then fine. Almost anything you want, just please don't put me back!" We were back in my cubicle; Nothing had changed yet, but he looked closely at my "dead" body. "You have so many reasons for not wanting to be alive. What are your reasons for wanting to be dead?" I had to shrug. "Nobody around me is happy. I'm not happy either. I've come to the conclusion that other people can have a better life if I'm not in the way. Even if I can't find happiness myself I don't want to be blamed for making everyone around me unhappy. While that's still a matter of avoidance, I'm tired of hurting. I want to escape my pain. So it's not a matter of wanting to be dead, it's more a matter of not particularly wanting to be alive." He nodded at this, adding "I hear that a lot. Many people aren't in a hurry to die but they're not disappointed when they do." This time I nodded. He then looked me up and down, carefully. "It's sex, isn't it." In this state I couldn't lie to myself, much less Him. I nodded again. "What's the right of it? What are the rules? What expectations are reasonable? Why is sexuality so important to my identity? Why is it so much work? Why is", waving at my desk, "this so much easier on my nerves? And how much is too much? And why have I felt so damnably empty?" A smile grew on His face. "All very good questions. Sex is important- don't ever think it isn't, it's there to tie you to life and allows you to provide life as a gift. It keeps you human. It keeps your mate human. It provides one facet for love. It's a gift you can grant your spouse- and one your spouse can grant you. "Let me ask you- if you could have any unattached woman you wanted, what would you do?" "Blow my brains out I'd think. That's an impossible responsibility. I don't want to disappoint any more women than the one I already have." His stare was more than a little unnerving. I needed to better explain this; He obviously didn't need any explanation, really, but He seemed to expect it. Perhaps to make me think about it? "I want, no, I *need* to love and be loved. So to have a woman once is one thing- which would hurt me to not be loving. To keep is another. To satisfy a woman is yet another. Loving, protecting and cherishing is another, and a great burden. Knowing how to express due benevolence is difficult- especially when it feel unilateral. I've worked to avoid having a roving eye but that doesn't mean my hormones didn't occasionally take command of where my eyes are pointed but that just hurts me more. Add to all of this the fact that I'm invisible to the kinds of women that most men, including me, find attractive." He nodded as I went through this, wanting me to continue. "The image of any woman, even my wife, looking at me and thinking-- much less saying-- 'I want a piece of that' is so ludicrous as to be insanely funny. My wife told me that we're in an exclusive relationship- she's not taking any chances like she did with her first husband when she took him back after his indiscretions. My balls may like the idea of extra women in my life but I'm not about to give her up like that." "Do you resent that you get so much less slack than her ex-husband? And isn't wanting to die-- or, at least, not wanting to live-- a form of abandonment?" I sighed; He was going for sore spots. "Yes, I resented that. And she admitted she was far more sexually adventurous with him than with me. I'm certain that I'm a complete dud in bed and I think she likes it that way. If she didn't like it, it's her fault for not teaching me anything. As for me abandoning her, well, at least there's a hefty insurance payout for her once I expire. She has worried over money so much that this should solve that problem for her." "So ... What do you want?" I sighed. How to answer such a question? "Meaning, I think. I've been living life and not seeing any meaning to it, or a point, or even a punchline where I'm not the butt of a cruel joke. I want to know that this", waving my hand at my body, "has some kind of meaning and that my pain has meant something- and, fortunately, being alive isn't really necessary to comprehend this." "Your life still has meaning. You've put a lot into it, even if you don't think you did. You've educated many, most without realizing it. Despite your belief that you have been a bad example, you haven't. We have watched you touch others' lives when they needed it. You've been there for your wife when no one else would stand by her. We know your heart and your pain, we know your frustrations- but these are what you get by living and breathing." "Thank you. Can we go now?" "No. You've got more children to sire-- not wanting to live doesn't absolve you of this duty. Since you never made any deposits at a sperm bank it can't be arranged in absentia so you'll need to do it the hard way-- Pun intended." I couldn't believe that my maker would make a pun like that. There were a lot of ministers that'd have quite a double- take. I saw my face snicker. "There are more lives you will be touching and who will be touching you because they need to. You'll recognize these events as they arrive, and your wife will grow to accept the necessary arrangements. You'll be healed and there are some pleasant surprises awaiting you and your women. When you wake up, this will have been a dream, fading quickly. You'll go on with your life, which will take on some new shapes. "And remember- We love you and, like many others, we are with you." He reached out to touch the shoulder of my dead body ... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I snapped awake- what had happened? How'd I fall asleep at my desk? I had this vague dream of being mostly dead and facing God himself. Naahhhh... I sighed and turned back to my work. Fini -- Jack C Lipton | cupasoup@softhome.com | http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/CupaSoup/www/ "If you're not confused you obviously don't understand human sexuality." -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d, look for subject {ASSD}| |Archive at Hosted by | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+