The Spark of Life

In one of my creative writing classes in college, we would do a writing assignment each week, then spend part of the next class workshopping it with an assigned group. As the semester wore on, a trend began to develop in my work.

In almost every piece I wrote in that class, someone died, or came close to dying, or in some way flirted with the other side. In increasingly graphic ways. Why is that? I’m not a particularly morbid person.

The fascinating thing about death is how close we are to it at every moment. A step off a curb, a twitch of a steering wheel, a usually-benign crazy guy on the bus—that’s all it takes to send us from one world to the next.

Most people spend their whole lives trying to avoid death. For most of human history that was all life was. Nowadays with the convenience of Safeway and universal health care it doesn’t require the same exertion just to make it to tomorrow, but avoiding death still takes a lot of energy. People build their lives around postponing the inevitable: exercising, wearing a seatbelt, taking swimming lessons. But postpone it all you want—one day, it’s still coming.

I’ve only seen one dead body in my life—it was my great aunt. She had an open casket at her funeral, and I had just turned 15. It was a little scary, but also uncanny. Freud defines the uncanny as that which is familiar, yet somehow not, and that’s what she was. She looked the same—maybe a little greyer—but at the same time, she was just, not.

So, what is that thing that makes the dead not alive? Aside from a pulse and brain activity. Is that all there is to life?

And that, my friends, is why people die in my stories. It’s not because that’s all that happens in life, or because it’s all I can think about—it’s because I want to understand life, and the fine line between the two. Either that or I’m just strapped for ideas.

You'll Like What I Tell You to Like: The Hunger Games

I just finished The Hunger Games.

As much as I don’t like to buy into trends, sometimes things are popular with good reason. Like legwarmers, and Justin Bieber. And even though not jumping on the bandwagon is all the rage (see the irony?) some trends must be indulged. Sometimes popular books and movies deserve the attention they receive. 

The Hunger Games takes place in a sinister dystopian future. Each year teenagers are selected to participate in a brutal, Darwinian fight to the death. It’s like Extreme Survivor—there’s even a Jeff Probst-esque host.

The text could be saying any number of things about western culture—violence as entertainment, total disregard for privacy, the superficiality of everything, taking wealth for granted while others starve right next door—but the thing that keeps the reader hooked is the page-turning story. Will the main characters live or die? It’s pretty much the most gripping question of all.

But when you've closed the book, what you'll best remember about The Hunger Games is the oft-uncomfortable glimpse it gives into your own mind. What would you do if you found yourself in a position where you had to kill or be killed? How much control do you have over your own id?

I think that in that kind of life-or-death situation you never know what you’ll do until you’re actually faced with such a choice, but at times I felt that I would show far less mercy than Katniss. I expect I’d perch in a tree, out of sight and wait for the other players to kill each other off. But if the opportunity arose to do away with a competitor without danger to myself, getting myself that much closer to safety… well, it would be hard not to take that opportunity.