we had to do an homage/rip-off of one of our favorite comic voices. I choose to do Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian, and choose Camus as the person I met on my controlled near death experience:
during
my first
near-death
experience, I had the honor of sharing a croissant with Albert Camus. I found him near the end of the blue tunnel, staring at St. Peter in deep contemplation. Camus died 50 years ago in a car accident. An absurd, untimely death. Fitting. An existentialist in heaven— not so fitting. When I asked him how he felt about this turn of events he gave a hearty laugh. “Well, it was certainly unexpected,” he said. “I guess I’m a little lost now. My time on earth was devoted to providing meaning to an inevitably finite life. This whole eternal business has certainly thrown me for a loop.”
We walked for a little while. He seemed to be in a general state of puzzlement, and only talked when I prompted him. I asked him if he thought people would stop reading his work if they knew there was a heaven. He thought for a few minutes, and then finally said no. “At least I hope not,” he said. “The certainty of an afterlife would provide excuses for people to care less about their decisions. People need to act well without thinking about what comes after. The world is shitty enough as it is. If individuals stopped taking responsibility for their actions, would that be a world you want to live in?” he asked me, slight distress showing in his eyes.
I shook my head. He lit a cigarette and offered me one, but I told him I only smoke Pall Malls. Besides, smoking a cigarette during a near death experience didn’t strike me as the greatest idea. I asked him how guys like Nietzsche and Sartre were getting along up here in the clouds. He exhaled deeply. “Those guys are stubborn jerks,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll crack a joke about how we were wrong about the Big Guy, but they always just grumble and sulk away. Some people just can’t handle the absurd, I guess.”
