Mortality trumpets

"So what now, Jack? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and trumpets sound?"
"Or you could surrender."

The levity inherent to that amazing quote (from one of my most favorite movies of all time) doesn't quite fit my mood, and yet, it does. It doesn't convey much in the way of gravitas (gravity?), but it catches the essence of something. Mortality? The futility of immortality? I'm not quite sure.

Mortality is a scary thing to consider. It's frightened me since I was 10, back then to the point of terror, nightmares, and internal paralysis. I get flashes of those sometimes if I think about it too long or too hard, but in flashes (and sometimes not), I can get away with some musings on death.

It's a strange word, death. Starts and ends with sounds ("d" and "th") that I've always closely associated with each other in the Hindi alphabet. Circular. Cool vowels along the way. Three of the four letters of my first name, encapsulated in the middle, out of order, chaotic. People shy away from it. When my grandmother passed away, I couldn't say it -- I couldn't say she had died. I still can't, not directly. No, she passed away. Sure, let's argue the semantics of the one sure thing that will come to pass in our lifetimes. To end said lifetime.

We could lose everything -- relationships, senses, heartbeat, rhythm, music -- in a flash. Would we miss it? No one can say. One of the best-kept secrets of the universe. But, being immortal seems so boring and futile, especially after reading Tuck Everlasting. Why, then, does death scare us so much, or maybe the weaker of us?

Sometimes, I wish I had the Master Play Book of Life sitting in front of me. I'd like to know what end we as a civilization are spiraling toward, in our own respective designs. I want to see what Gary Williams and Ralph Friedgen see before their games, the plan -- with the circles and the arrows and the shapes and colors and squiggles -- of Ultimate Victory. Does God have one?

I want one. Wouldn't that be cool? Imagine what I could do with the Master Play Book of Life. I could cheat! I could win the lottery, circumvent the political system to get Obama elected, single-handedly develop the cure to cancer, fix global warming -- I would know how to counter every move before it was even made!

Which begs the question: Who or what are we fighting? Why would we need this hypothetical Master Play Book of Life? It could be death, because it is superior not only to us as individuals, but also to us as a civilization. Look what it's done to so many species before us. We should be humbled, yet we are not.

Erik said something yesterday about us all dying at the age of 20. We would leave a very lonely Sarah behind (she's only just 19) to overthink the remaining 10-odd months of her life. I admire folk who can carry on vivid lives despite knowing their future forecast, knowing they probably won't last another week or month or year. We just don't want to die at 20.

I didn't have much purpose in writing this, really. We have no choice but to surrender, in the end. It makes one wonder, though: Just who will be playing those trumpets?