Death and Taxes
The psyche tells a serious joke
On the edge of a clearing in a dark forest somebody in a black hooded cloak is stirring a shining, thick, golden substance with a long stick. Whatever that stuff is, it has cooked down to maybe 8 inches from the bottom of a huge black cauldron. A small fire heats the big pot from underneath. The weather feels mild, and I don’t feel afraid or worried about anything.
“What are you doing there?” I ask, friendly, like a curious 9-year-old.
“What do you think?” she replies.
“Well, there’s nobody else around, and I’m here by myself. You look like an archetype with that robe and the cauldron and all… Whatever it is you’re stirring has cooked down quite a bit. It looks like a dense, glowing slurry, not like a potion or anything. It really looks amazing.”
“Hmmm,” she says.
“Could it be a life? Maybe it’s my life? Of course, it could be everybody’s life, and you’re letting me see that there’s not a lot left. But it doesn’t sound logical that you’d show that to just me. I’m a fairly old woman, and I’m the only one here with you right now, and anyway, I’m more of an introvert type so I look at things from an inner place first, then outward…so I think it might be my life in there.”
“Hmmm,” she says.
I continue, “I’ve done most of what I wanted to do in this life, and I know how lucky I’ve been. I’m mostly happy. In looking back 85 years, it does seem sometimes like my life, all in all, has come to have a glow to it. So what am I doing here?”
“What do you think?” she says.
“I’m not sure. I suppose since I’m alone with you, there’s something you want me to know? I don’t even know who you are.”
“Who do you think I am?” she says. She is beginning to be annoying, talking to me like some kind of counselor, throwing back my questions. But I don’t want to offend her.
“Let me see… I can’t see your face, and I can’t see your hands. Maybe you don’t have any. Are you Death? Maybe…my Death?”
“Hmmm,” she says, still stirring.
“If you’re Death, and that’s my remaining life in your cauldron, then I’m not ready to go quite yet?”
“You’re correct about that,” she says.
After a long pause, I ask, “What’s it going to be like when it’s my turn to die?”
The empty cloak turns my way, and she says, slowly and kindly, “I’ll just wrap my arms around you.”
Oh, my… That feels really lovely. I’m feeling what a holy gift this is, meeting her like this. I stand quietly for a while, and she returns to her stirring.
“Can I come visit you again sometime?” I ask.
“I’m not hard to find,” she says.
“How do I get here?” I ask.
“How did you get here this time?”
“I’m dreaming. I don’t know!” I say.
She sighs. “Well, what did you do today?”
“The main thing is that I finished my taxes and put the checks in the mail.”
Then she says, “The two certainties…there you have it.”
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I wake up with a laugh. I couldn’t have made this up.
April 4, 2023
