Death, Page 3

past, the bill for Shield surgery for general people was brought before the National Assembly and was pending. Not many people think that the bill would pass since most of the members of the National Assembly are still grandalphas, but it could not be delayed any longer considering the people's emotions.

  The events and accidents of grandalphas were no longer attracting people's attention. People were now fed up with such news. Statistic reports were replacing the news on the events and accidents caused by grandalphas. Citizen's interview on this issue was shown on the news, and they said that the driver license of grandalphas needed to be revoked and the ones who are showing symptoms need to be put in a concentration camp to prevent any injury or death of innocent and normal people .

  Some doctors were siding with the grandalphas' explaining that there still are many of them who do not have any symptoms, but their voices were not heard anymore. Doctors who forecasted the dark prospect of grandalphas having symptoms by showing the statistic reports were well heard by the people. Voices that normal people should take over power of grandalphas in politics and economy were becoming stronger.

  The following news reported that the pharmaceutical company of Shield is trying to find the reasons of the symptoms, and that they will make new drugs to treat these symptoms.

  While I watched the morning news as usual I started to worry 'would I become like that?' 'what if I do?' I sleep less now, less than 4 hours a day. I can't sleep longer even if I try. I comforted myself because I didn’t feel tired yet, but I was afraid that I would also become like those on the news.

  My wife is sick. She's not just sick, she can no longer move. I suggested major organ transplantation, but she's not having the surgery. 'It's my time now, and I should die.’ she thinks. My younger son respected my wife's opinion, and stayed 'natural'. He looks older than me now. Although he suggested surgery to my wife, she wouldn’t listen.

  She has aged and is waiting for her time, but it’s beautiful. I kept thinking that I should have been like that. My grandchildren are all here and we were waiting for her death. I'm amazed that my wife waiting for her death looked so beautiful. People say that everybody dies alone, but my wife is definitely not dying alone.

  My wife took look at everyone and looked at me, then closed her eyes. My wife worried about me this morning for not sleeping longer, but she died. She died with a happy face.

  What is death? Does death make me vanish? Does getting old and dying make me dead? Can I be alive when my body is dead? Or do I die when my body dies? Then what am I being able to die?

  What am I and how can I die? Is this body me? Or what's inside is me? Is there anything in me? If that is a soul, is there a soul? or does my brain make the concept of a soul? If there is a soul, can it be separated from the body? If it gets separated from the body, would it stay alive after I died? If the soul stays alive, can that be called me? Would that soul live forever? Or would it disappear someday?

  I believe that the soul lives in the body. Although, I don’t know where in the body. It could be in the brain or in the heart. However the soul is not a substance, so maybe it does not exist anywhere. I still believe that the soul lives in the body. Yet what I think differently from religion is I believe the soul dies with the body.

  Many say that death is sad. Was my wife sad that she was dying? She smiled. She wouldn't know whether to be sad or not. Dying means that she will disappear. How would she know whether to be sad or not? If she felt sad, then she would have been alive. Of course, my family and I are sad because my wife is gone. If our soul and body cannot be separated, my wife would not have been gone. If my wife exists, is there a reason to be sad?

  My wife is dead. If there is a soul, my wife would worry about me, about my symptoms, my future, and my life without her.

  I turned on the evening news, but nothing came to me. I needed 3 days to let my wife go. I turned the TV off.

  When will my skein of thread be gone? Would it disappear? It's so greedy and holds up the thread so tight, would it be able to disappear?

  Someone told me that the best way to remember someone is to live my life as the person help me become as I am. Would I be able to live on as the way that my wife formed me?

  I miss my wife.

  Me

  Someone kicked me. I was lying down on the street when I woke up. I went to bed last night so I didn’t understand what had happened. I thought about it, and realized that maybe I was having the stage 2 symptoms. It shocked me.

  I slept less every day after my wife died. I didn't even sleep 2 hours a day but I was not tired. I sometimes fell asleep during the day though. I fell asleep while I was working, eating, or bathing. I knew that I had the stage 1 symptoms because the news talked all about it.

  As I was heading home, I regretted about the injection that I had before my wife died. I shouldn't have been so greedy. The newly improved medicine makes me live for 40 years without additional injection. If I knew that the reinjection time was living after my wife's death, I wouldn't have had it. It was my mistake for not controlling myself rather than my older son.

  When I went home, the house was robbed. I left the door open, so the insurance company wouldn't take responsibility for it. I was thinking whether I should buy a TV since I couldn’t watch the news, but I fell asleep

  The news didn't attract my attention anymore. I wanted to know my future. I resigned from my company several years ago. I was actually fired. The company decided to not hire any grandalphas, so we were all fired. Funny thing is that most of the leading members of the company are grandalphas. I had some savings and insurance, so I won’t have any problem with living.

  I woke up in the same place again. It had not even been an hour since I got home.

  My grandchildren didn’t visit me anymore. My sons didn’t visit me anymore. They came home on my wife's memorial, but they left as soon as the ceremony was over. My grandchildren used to love me when they were little, but now they looked at as if they saw a monster and avoided me. My sons didn't say anything. My older son had the chance to get the reinjection before my wife died, but he refused to get the injection. It's been 10 years since the medication effects were wearing off, and now he looks like a grandfather waiting for his death.

  My son had his Shield surgery when he was 40, and looked the same until my wife died. However he was aging faster than the normal people when he didn't get the injection. It was one of the withdrawal symptoms of shield. He was older than my younger son who was not a grandalpha. However, he made the choices on his own, so he's happy with his life. He felt proud to get old now as he saw his mother die.

  Stage 2 symptoms were becoming serious. I used to sleep for 2 hours and I was okay during the stage 1 symptoms, but now I needed 12 hours of sleep every day. Some people were sleeping for 16 hours. It'd be okay if people were just sleeping longer. The problem is that they woke up unconsciously and go shopping, walk, drive, and work in office, and they don't remember doing any of that. They suddenly fall asleep and wake up in strange places. I experienced stage 1 symptoms. I needed to be very careful from now on.

  Grandalphas don't have driver's license. They cannot get drivers license, and the ones they had before were all collected. We can't drive now. The stage 2 symptoms make people drive without conscious. This made them get into accidents because they don't think while driving and fall asleep in dangers. .

  Some merchants took advantage of this. They found out the customers with stage 2 symptoms, and they earned money by making them pay more. They would paid whatever the merchants asked even if the product was 100 hwan, they paid 10 won when the merchants said it was 10won, because they were not thinking. People were taking advantage of this to make them steal money or even kill people

  If I existed in my body, then the body would be me, but if I do the things that I don't remember, would it be me who's doing the things? Like in somnambulism, I wouldn't remember anything, and I wouldn't think anything.
Would it still be me? How would I know if it was me? I woke up in a different place from where I went to bed. Someone inside me would open the doors to go outside and walk around the streets to do the things that I thought should be done. Could this still be considered things done by me?

  I opened up a ramen soup in a bag, put water in it, and ate it for lunch. Then I went to buy a TV thinking that I fell asleep in the morning so I wouldn't fall asleep until evening. I recently slept a lot, mostly during the day, but usually once a day. I fell asleep twice at one time, so I thought I wouldn't fall asleep. I picked out the cheapest TV in the store. It was in the size of a hand, but costed 1 won 99 hwan. The salesperson checked whether I had stage 2 symptoms, and he told me the correct price when I answered all the questions correctly.

  I came home and turned on the TV on a roughly wrecked table. A light came out of the TV and the screen showed moving people. I turned on the news.

  Grandalphas are no longer an issue on the news. The events and accidents caused by grandalphas didn’t even show up in the news anymore unless normal people got hurt or killed. Today's news was on people with stage 3 symptoms escaping out of the farm they worked in. Their pictures and phone numbers were posted, and the reporter announced to report