Mortality of Man.

I often contemplate death. It is the greatest mystery of all time, and a rare few men can say that they put their foot upon the trachea of our old rival, pressed down with slight pressure, and made death gag ever so slightly so as to slow it's pursuit of souls. Aaron Mandel seems to be one of those men. The courage of kings boils inside his tiny, misshapen heart, and when the spirit of his ancestors compelled him to adventure, he answered the call eagerly.

With the same spirit that drove Alexander the Great to conquer most of the civilized world, Aaron Mandel was compelled to face death down on its own terms and allow himself to be strapped to a elderly man like a baby indian was loving strapped into its papoose as its mother gathered berries in the fields. With the noble blood of a thousand kings inspiring his steps, he screamed like a mother as the awesome force of gravity tore at his flesh. The whole time, death calmly watching, waiting for the silver-haired guardian angel to make a mistake. The slightest error that would allow the bony and cold fingers of the reaper to claim its greatest prize; the soul of the ever-elusive Aaron Mandel, offspring of sorcerers and kings, man without fear.

I will be happy to claim even a small fraction of conquest over death that Aaron has taken. I will allow Aaron his title of champion in the battle against death, for I have instead made a deal with the Grim Reaper. I have willingly sacrificed my soul to the afterlife, and in exchange I have dictated my demise on my own terms.

At a truck stop less than 100 miles from Walla Walla, where the display cases are filled with collectible knives and John Denver tapes, the fluorescent bulbs overhead flicker erratically as if the remoteness of this place makes electricity itself struggle and crawl trying to travel the vast distances that separate the truck stop from the rest of humanity. In this place there is a diner. The coffee is always stale and cold, but served diligently by waitresses with blank stares and no nametags, an unlit cigarette always hanging from their lips. In this diner a man sits at the bar adjacent to the turnstile of pies slowly rotating with a slight whirring noise that is remarkably loud for the silence of the rest of the building. This man sits at the bar, sipping a tall, sweating glass of ice water, constantly dabbing the sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief despite the fact that the air conditioner is constantly churning its chockingly cool air into the diner. Nobody ever sits next to the man next to the pies, he is always ignored and does his equal share of ignoring. One day I sat next to this man after many years of selecting pie from the case next to him.

"I know who you are." I whispered to him over the noise of the pie turnstile. The waitresses took some silent cue and all disappeared into the kitchen. "So what do you want, then?" the man asked, sipping from his ice water and brushing his forhead with the black handkerchief. "You can have me, no fighting, no crying, no begging." I stared at him for a long time as he contemplated my offer. "It would be a relief, painless deaths are hard to come by these days." he said. "I want to dictate HOW I die, in exchange." I said, staring right at him. "Okay, how do you want to die?" was his response...

"IF I die," I began, which made him smile slightly and turn his head, more of regard than anyone had ever gotten from this man, "I want to die in outer space." The man stared ahead and slowly stood, pushed his glass away, and turned to shake my hand. I grabbed the cold clammy palm, and it was a deal.

If I die, I am going to die in outer space.