The Savior Who Could Not Beat Death

The Savior Who Could Not Beat Death

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

 

He thought he had beaten death.  The arrogant son-of-a-bitch REALLY TRULY thought he had beaten death, stymied death, outfoxed death…..

But no one—and I mean NO ONE—ever beats death.

The arrogant son-of-a-bitch is finding that out now, and finding it out in a slow, methodical, unforgiving, drip-drip-drip fashion.  Death is catching up to him now, day-by-day-by-day, and the pace is accelerating and making up ground quicker than he ever thought possible.  And still—and still, in full acknowledgement of this fact—the death he is experiencing is of the slow, torturous, unrelenting variety, akin to an old-fashioned Chinese water torture assassination.

But who, might I ask, is more deserving of such a cruel fate??

Oh, he was “beating” death at one time—as recently as a handful of years ago even—when he was pouring a shitload of money (not HIS money, mind you, but society’s money i.e. Medicare payments that could and should have been dedicated to suffering individuals much younger and more deserving than himself) into this personal crusade of his.  He was gonna do everything humanly possible to extend his life well beyond the threshold that God in all His divine wisdom had set for him.  Those extreme measures taken in his mid-eighties included new heart valves, new pacemakers, uber-expensive medications, egregiously expensive therapies meant to turn back the clock, ultra-frequent doctor visits, new this, new that, new this, new that, new…..EVERYTHING, I tell you!!!

EXPENSES BE DAMNED!!!  Those shouldn’t even be a consideration for a person so essential to society, should they?!?!

Everyone who was anyone knew that his continued presence on Earth’s surface was of the utmost importance to humanity and therefore no expense—And I mean NO expense!!—should be spared in order that our irreplaceable hero could go on living for time immemorial.  And if that meant the public coffers needed to be raided time and time again to ensure our paladin’s continued survival, well…..wasn’t such promiscuous spending immanently worth it to society?!

Well…..wasn’t it?!?!

After all, there is only one of this guy, and once he’s gone there’ll never be another to replace him (forget for a second that this argument applies to anyone who has ever walked the face of the Earth).  He is special; he is pluperfect; he is a gift to mankind handed down from God above; and thus every measure known to modern medicine should be undertaken to assure his maximum duration of survival on our Lilliputian planet.

But that charade is over now.

Yeah, thankfully, it is finally over…..

Boy, is it ever!!!

Purveyors of modern medicine have finally succumbed to the obvious (and perhaps to their financial consciences as well) and withdrawn all “curative” treatments from our erstwhile gilded individual.  They are continuing to offer him full palliative assistance, certainly, as anyone and everyone in a compassionate society such as ours should be tendered during times of suffering, but insofar as those ridiculous lengths they were bending over backwards to accommodate just a few years ago in order to artificially extend his lifespan…..those are gratefully now merely a vestige of the past.

And so now he can feel his life slowly slipping away, this self-anointed savior of mankind—day by day by slow, ruthless, excruciating day–and just a single glance in the bathroom mirror each morning at his atrophying shell of a body, his wan complexion, and his sunken, zombie-like eyes definitively confirm what his mind has been screaming at him for weeks:  He is nearing checkmate in this long-running chess match that he has been engaged in—a  morbid contest which has teetered agonizingly back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, while our “indispensable” champion’s very life has whipsawed precariously in the balance–and there isn’t a damned thing he or anyone else can do anymore to alter that grim, preordained outcome.

He thought he had beaten death.  The overly conceited son-of-a-bitch REALLY TRULY thought he had beaten death, stymied death, outfoxed death…..

But no one—and I mean NO ONE—ever beats death.

Not even self-anointed saviors of mankind…..