Why the Dead Stay Dead

The wind is scraping the tip of the tree limb against the window, in its usual, mournful song. If I couldn't see the tree branch itself I would dash right out of the house. It's just one of those sounds that lends itself to imagination, and tells the mind that it could be the sound of oh-so-many-things -- just about anything but a simple branch scraping against a windowpane. Maybe it's a footstep in the abandoned attic one floor up. Maybe it's rats scrabbling in the wallboards. It could even be a skeleton, with movement but no voice, trying to communicate with me, or come through the walls to get me. I have no idea why a skeleton would want to "get me," but it really is that kind of sound.

Even watching the branches twist and swing in the wind, the sound is still pretty spooky. I think the twig that does most of the actual scraping is right at the top of the window, and often just above the frame, so you can't really see it as it scrapes. There are a few others on the same branch that drag across the windowpane itself, and they make a horrible little accompaniment for the soloist. By itself, with the wind whipping and dragging this twig against the window and frame is enough to distract me from whatever I happen to be doing. When the whole chorus kicks in, well, then it's time to go turn up the stereo and click on another light or two.

I'm not a skittish person by nature, and I usually don't give much credence to the many ghost stories that we all encounter. I've always figured that, once you're dead, you're either rotting contentedly away, or, if there really is a soul, then you're off doing whatever souls do once they're free of the body. None of the arguments for wanting to stick around and pretend to still be alive have ever made any sense to me. Dead is dead, and any attractions that life holds must seem pretty thin and frail once the soul is free to see things as they really are.

I mean, really, besides your lover, or maybe your lovers, a couple of dear friends, and your own kids, who do you really want to come back and see again? Are you really going to miss your job so much that you're going to haul your carcass up even just one more time, if you don't have to? Was Aunt Edie's rhubarb pie really all that spectacular that you can't just let it go? Hell, even though that was the best damn pie you ever tasted, you still couldn't manage to make yourself go visit her any more than at the obligatory holidays. Do you really think you'd muster the energy to drag yourself out of your nice, warm grave, and stop by for just one more whiff of rhubarb? I don't think so. Especially since you know you'd have to sit through another dissertation on which of your cousins are married and which ones are getting divorced. A woman with such a head for names and dates missed her calling in the community college history department.

"What about revenge?" you argue. I don't think so. As important as all our little wars and slights may be to us while we're up and about, I really think that our perspective alters a bit once we're dead. Is it really worth it, to find some way to become corporeal again, just to spook the guy who stole your bike, or to send cold shivers down the back of somebody who cheated on you?

Even if you had a serious grudge, like you got murdered, or the government stole your farm, or your family or country had a generations- or centuries-long feud or war going on, what difference could it make? One thing we can count on, among the living, is that threats of noises in the dark are not going to significantly change our behavior. We might play our music a little louder, or make our fires a little brighter, but if we've made up our minds to do something, a few scares, even from legions of dead, will not alter our paths. Humans are notorious for continuing on, even into the face of certain destruction. Phantoms and spooks are enough to unsettle our sleep a little, but not enough to put us off our course.

I think that being dead lets one see that pretty quickly. Since I'm not dead, this is all just conjecture, of course, but it seems to me that being dead gives one the leisure to think things all the way through. I think we'll all see that, even if physical movement and action are possible, it will be patently obvious that they are also pointless.

No, if you want to change anything in the world, you'll need to do it while you're breathing. If any ghost walked up to me and tried to pull any bad-ass, I'm-going-to-steal-your-soul bull, I'd just have to say, "Sorry, Buddy. You had your chance. You're dead now, and I'm not, so piss off. Go lie down like a good little dead guy, and leave the living to those of us who are alive."

I have no idea, of course, how this would go over with this kind of hypothetical deader, but I'm really not that worried about it. Of all the deaths I've seen and heard of, I have yet to learn of anyone who died of "Soul's Touch," or "Strangulation by Undead." It makes for entertaining stories, but it doesn't really trouble me much. At least not today, since the wind has died down, and the sun is shining brightly through my window, and the tree is fairly still.

Ask me again tonight, though, when the wind picks up, and the spirits dance in the tree....