Death and the Devil, those two confused cousins. One innocent but for the single act–which surely can’t be held against him any more than the writer his writing (though this strikes me a heinous comparison, as the writer often does more damage than his due)– and the other the negator of life. How different it is to take life than to negate it all the day long. The taking happens in a moment, at bottom. Even the prolonged death is the other man’s doing up until the time he calls that more serious, but innocent cousin; and what a weak man’s move, to hurt, to prolong, to visit with worry –and then– at just the moment that justice leans to its toes, he recedes; as if an exit now would avert the room’s eyes from his terrible doing all these hours and days and save him face. No, he is exposed to one and all just in that moment! And he yet retreats; time after time, for all of eternity. He must not have the stomach for the deed; or perhaps there is simply nothing left to be done that can be his doing–perhaps he hasn’t the tool, or the right; not the permission necessary. And what a funny thing to be granted permission –and indeed to do the granting– for the injustice, but not its more noble neighbor. And how death must envy also! Doesn’t it tire us to punch the clock? Don’t we look to the smallest of excitements in our day to perk our ears? How tempting it must be to encroach, even if only for curiosity sake. No, better we think only of his nobility; an honor-bound mercy bringer and nothing more. I can’t stand to think of the two mixing royal duties. This may be the truest perversion. And alas! we see the need for the rule of their superior; to separate the two. Death and devil; merciful and merry. The one bored but swift about his duties, the other blissful but filled, presumably, with shame. A calamity in two parts with divine orchestration. Why do we confuse these two? Are they simply clergymen in matching robes? Imagine their distinct homilies! Or is it a matter of allegiance; one obedient, and the other more cursed to his fate; If cursed, how great an error must have been made by the Liar for this to be his punishment. That original crime of his must be nothing less than perpetual, irrevocable, irredeemable. And for this, the curse, never a creation–just the whispering into ears’ harsh words of denial–for denying was his sin, was it not? A high crime it was indeed. Maybe that writer is just the comparison after all.