SPIKE's INTERVIEW WITH DEATH

*picture taken by Jon Sullivan. posted to http://www.pd.foto.com . all photos on that website are in the public domain and a great place to get legal jps.




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SPIKE's INTERVIEW WITH DEATH

SPIKE Q: So Death, what brings you to these parts?

DEATH: Searching, searching.

SPIKE Q: Okay--- next question. Are you male or female?

DEATH: I am androgenous and ambigendered.

SPIKE Q: Care to explain that?

DEATH: No.

SPIKE Q: My friend Marie is dieing and she is unhappy about that.

DEATH: Happiness and unhappiness are not within my realm. People live and people die.
It may be everything to you but it is nothing to me.

SPIKE Q: Uh, okay. So Death, what do you do in your spare time?

DEATH: I play strip poker with my best buds-- Anubis, Kore, Kali, and Hecate.

SPIKE Q: STRIP poker? But you're not wearing any-- oh never mind. So who is the best at it?

DEATH: Kali is a real cutthroat. Hecate cheats. Kore is distracted depending on the season.
Sometimes Anubis picks a fight with Hecate's hounds. Kali does win most of the time.
Hecate and I are about evenly matched.

SPIKE Q: Your fellow poker fiends are almost all women!

DEATH: It would seem that way, yes.

SPIKE Q: What are the stakes?

DEATH: Why do you ask? Are you planning to join us anytime soon?

SPIKE Q: Nooooo.

DEATH: Just checkin'. Somehow I didn't think you would scare so easily. After all, you have
looked in my face and laughed a few times over the years.

SPIKE Q: Please don't hold that against me. It was all nervous laughter at finding myself still
alive.

DEATH: You have to admit you've done some pretty stupid things. Well, the last time wasn't
your fault. That was the time you refused to die, you know.

SPIKE Q: Uh, thanks. I think.

DEATH: You're quite welcome my dear. I perceive that you are thinking of a bus or an
airplane. I suppose you are thinking about the terminal of death being the end of the
line. Or perhaps you are wishing for a speedy exit.

SPIKE Q: Actually, I was thinking about Emily Dickinson. Did you really stop for her?

DEATH: Emily and I were rather well acquainted during her earthly lifetime. Most poets of a
melancholy nature are well acquainted with me, you know. You've written some deep stuff yourself, come to think of it.

SPIKE Q: Thanks. Sort of. Care to talk about Sam Hain or seances?

DEATH: Sam Hain. When the veil thins. My favorite time of year....

SPIKE Q: Uh, Death? Death?

DEATH: Sorry my dear. I was pleasantly distracted. Oh, that's right. I remember your first
seance.

SPIKE Q: You do?

DEATH: Oh yes. You were such an odd kid. Reading the Sunday obituaries was one of your
hobbies. You and a couple of other vacationing kids were under a boat on the beach
one night. Someone had the bright idea to call back John F. Kennedy.

SPIKE Q: Yes, the candle blew out and we all spooked.

DEATH: JFK is not really interested in coming back to talk to the public, you know. Better you
should have tried to dig up Sylvia Plath. Now there was a fine melancholy soul. Since
the advent of psych drugs, there are less melancholy souls around. Such is progress.

SPIKE Q: You would rather have people be miserable and kill themselves?

DEATH: Now just who do you think I am, Spike? I take no position on suicide. None. Nor on
misery or content. I am nothing if I am not---

SPIKE Q: Yeah, yeah. What about reincarnation?

DEATH: What about it?

SPIKE Q: Well, is it real or not? An awful lot of witches and hindus believe in it.

DEATH: I take no position on that. I will say one thing though. Karma has been frightfully
misinterpreted. So has power for that matter.

SPIKE Q: Death-- uh, you are, uh-- vaporizing.

DEATH: Sorry, Spike. I gotta go. Seems the jig is up for some old guy in the nursing home up
the street. Shall I save you a chair at our poker game?






-sapphoq