Drowned

I like to imagine that, if there is a god, he is mercilful in our last moments. Especially in the most violent deaths. If he can do anything at all, can control the tides and the skies and the very sunrise, why could he not take away all traces of pain, obliterate every nerve ending? If a little girl has been stabbed by a captor, I hope she's shot an incredible dosage of celestial morphine and feels a serene bliss. If a soldier is shot in the abdomen and is slowly bleeding out, I hope he only feels the ground he lies on, and only remembers the smile of his lover or the laugh of his first born child. I hope the drowned child doesn't feel the incredible bursting of their lungs or the weight of the water crushing them or the insane need for oxygen. I hope the incinerated firefighter doesn't feel the scorching heat or the scalding of his flesh. I pray the shark attack victim doesn't feel the hundreds of razor-sharp teeth piercing his skin. I think about this sometimes when I hear of a murder or death or see one on TV. How could someone face death with dignity with that fear, that bone-chilling fear, of pain? And then I have a hope, perhaps a foolish one, that those on their death-bed from a painful wound or horrifying experience simply lose consciousness. Before their nerves can register the physical pain and bodily harm done to them, their brain shuts it all down. Like flipping the power switch on a circuit, a switch that controls every aspect of a machine. And I like to think that just like that the soul goes. Maybe the body remains animated for a few more moments, but the essence is gone, and so is the pain. I imagine that if you feel that incredible pain from a gun shot or a knife wound, then it means you will recover. The pain means you feel something, which means you will survive. That would be so amazingly comforting. But I don't know. And I suppose I never will. Until the very end.