His shirt was made of white cotton; his collar was neatly pressed. Below he wore a pair of slacks with some old worn dress shoes. The man had loved to be well groomed at all times, the outfit was a fitting final form for him, a fine dress for burial.
I placed my hand on his chest; the thoughts that entered my head were exhilarating. The thing that sat beneath my hand: an organ, cardiovascular muscle-- a heart. The organ that pumped life throughout a body. Made of two ventricles, two atria, powered by electrical pulses that rush through the system; contracting, then relaxing to a rhythmic lub-dub. Contracting-- then relaxing. Such a powerfully, delicate, organ.
And this organ sat beneath my hand, a few six inches beneath, protected by mere fabric (easily torn), mere skin (easily ripped), mere bone (easily broken). Six inches that a small minority would dare to cross. To reach into the thoracic cavity and meet the beating heart of a fellow specie, I’ve wondered many times about the mysterious force that halts the common man from doing such a thing.
Was it law that stopped most from attempting it? The fear of detainment, persecution, execution... Execution? Yes, once a man has crossed those six inches it seemed mandatory to do the same upon his own body. The irony was lost somewhere among the intricacies of the legal system, a trivial matter lawyers and prosecutors and judges seemed not care about, or at the very least cared less for than their next paycheck.
Ah, but law did not always exist. Were “man killed by man” incidents more common in those times? I would think not, else our kind would have died out long ago, or be much stronger than it is now. If such a thing was more common in the past we wouldn’t have evolved such weak bodies, would we? A human is a fragile creature: at birth next to useless, as other animals can swim, and walk, and run; nothing but bare skin to protect from blistering heat or frigid cold; many unable to function on their own, yet live to procreate and create offspring, introducing more and more problems into the gene pool.
Yet somehow we’ve managed to survive this long. With a huge brain to body ratio, instead of conforming to nature we have instead tailored it to our own liking, creating farms, buildings, vehicles, even medicine, computers, entertainment. We dig up miles of land for oil and coal to power our metallic creations, cut down acres and acres and acres of forest for wood and paper, without regard for other living creatures. We mold the world we were given to pertain only to us, for we possess such ability. If we are gifted with this sort of ability, should we not use it, after all? It seems obvious, that the answer would be yes.
From a scientific standpoint, it is the one thing that has managed to keep us alive. Without our massive cognitive abilities we would’ve been hunted down by other faster, stronger, more violent creatures before ever being able to populate the earth. Or maybe we would’ve evolved in a different manner, keeping our form lean and tall, our cardiovascular endurance at a high; that would be the norm. We would hunt by tiring out our prey-- not, like many, by catching up to it. Only few people specifically trained in our world would be able to even attempt such a thing, for most of us have gone soft, muscle replaced by fat, as we spend more time sitting, sitting, sitting-- unmoving. But instead, we have our brain.
From a religious standpoint, such is a gift from God which must be appreciated.
Ah yes, God. Such a wondrous creation, or creator, by those who believe in him. It is not within my abilities to decide whether such an omnipotent being exists or not, and so I shall not take a stance on the matter. However, God himself is such a wonder. If he exists, the gift he gave us was such a special one, and we are special to have it; if he doesn’t, the human race must have an extraordinary ego to create such a creature, just to appreciate themselves and hold themselves at such a higher standard above all other mammals.
Maybe it is this collective egotism of the homo sapien race that is the root of such a force. A group of humans, a society, believes itself more important than all else, and so take it upon themselves to determine what is “right” or “wrong”-- hell, they created the terms “right” and “wrong.” Is this self-centred way of thinking the consequence of an abnormally large cerebrum? One can only guess. If one were to ask a member of society this, after all, they would deny such a thing, for such narcissistic creatures very naturally would hate being called out for their narcissism.
And in their self-loving, it would also be natural to prevent the death of any member of their race. So, by consequence, they have decided the worst crime a fellow man could commit: the slandering of another human being. An inexcusable crime.
But they all die in the end, don’t they? This man’s heart was destined never to regain its rhythmic lub-dub. No more oxygen shall be pumped to power his brain, which within sat the mind, never to think again. But that was okay. The heat had finally risen out of the body, his skin now colder than my touch. His eyes closed in slumber, one from he will never wake. That was okay. He will never wake, and that was okay.
I carefully straightened his collar and stepped out of the room-- the funeral was about to begin.