Mortality
By Gordon Hopkins
“A book is forever.” – Christopher Fowler
Sorry. This one is going to be a downer. It can’t be helped.
When I was in college, many moons ago, my favorite place to hang out was the campus book store. This will shock no one, of course. As an antisocial weirdo, I didn’t often hang out with other students and they weren’t interested in hanging out with me.
I bought a lot more books than just the textbooks required for my classes. It was there that I discovered many of the authors I still obsess over today.
One book on a shelf that caught my eye, strictly because of the title, was “Roofworld.” The title intrigued me and, when I read the back copy, I was even more intrigued. It was about a secret society living on the rooftops of London, traveling via a secret network of ziplines, unseen by a populace that almost never bothers to look up.
That this still is not a big-budget Hollywood movie is baffling to me.
It was the first book of an author named Christopher Fowler. I have since acquired many more by Mr. Fowler and enjoyed them all. I am also a regular follower of his Twitter account, as his fascination with certain elements of pop culture align with my own.
It was his Twitter that leads to today’s column. I was lying in bed, reading my Twitter feed, which is always a terrible thing to do just before going to sleep, when I read the last entry in Fowler’s Twitter account, written not by him but his partner, “His sparkle, joy and humour are gone, but remain in my heart and his work.”
It was not unexpected. He’d had terminal cancer for a while. His doctors made it clear to him, and he to his followers, that it was only a matter of time. He Tweeted about it openly and with more humour (I’m using the British spelling in his honour) than I could muster. For example, “My nurse said; ‘We don’t get many terminal patients like you. You’re tall.’ Still trying to figure this out.”
Like so many of my favorite writers, I felt slightly guilty because my first thought upon hearing of his death was not, how sad for his loved ones but, “Dang. Now I’ll never get that ‘Roofworld’ sequel.”
The same night, Daniell Ellsberg Tweeted, “On February 17, without much warning, I was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer on the basis of a CT scan and an MRI. (As is usual with pancreatic cancer–which has no early symptoms–it was found while looking for something else, relatively minor). I’m sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me three to six months to live.”
Ellsberg is, of course, the man who famously (or infamously-take your pick) leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press, thus setting in motion the battle between government secrecy and freedom of the press that, in some sense, continues to this day.
Love him or hate him, it is undeniable that the man had guts. Facing death, he is showing the same bravery he did decades ago, facing a prison sentence for leaking government secrets. Last night he noted, “Moreover, my cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my quality of life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my former favorite foods!”
These twin hammer blows to my psyche got me thinking, rather selfishly, about my own mortality. Specifically, this question: would I prefer to know it was coming, or would I rather death take me without warning? We all know we are going to die someday. I’m not sure I would want to know my own expiration date.
