On A Pale Horse (43 page)

The verdict? Nothing. There was nothing in there. I was clean. No kidney stone, no tumor, no garbage. Apparently the X-ray blob had been false. Another sending of Satan. A thumbprint, my daughter suggested. I'll settle for that.

Oh, yes—I was a little sore following the cystoscopy and voided a few drops of blood. But nothing bad, and it was worth it. My kidney-stone incident was over.

This, then, is the story of the manner in which my consciousness of death has been heightened, in and out of this novel. Has it been worth it? I hope so. It seems to me that all living species need to survive, so nature provides them with instincts of pain and self-preservation that compel them to live. They also need to die, to make way for progress; otherwise the world would still be full of dinosaurs. (There's a new theory about those dinosaurs: at certain temperatures, some reptiles produce offspring that are all male or all female. Suppose the climate changed enough to throw all the big reptiles into one sex?) But circumstance takes care of termination, so it isn't necessary that creatures like dying. When something is truly voluntary, such as procreation. Nature makes sure it is pleasurable—for the male. Cynically, she does not require pleasure for the female; that is optional. With many species, rape seems to be impossible; not so for ours. Nature really is a green mother.

So we are left hating and fearing our inevitable death, though objectively we know this is pointless. Possibly, as my protagonist suggests, if we had a better appreciation of the larger picture, of the place death plays in life, we would suffer less. This novel is an attempt to encourage such understanding. If I succeed in this one thing, my own life may have justified itself.

So now I try to appreciate the mixed splendor that life is while it is mine. I watch my daughter with her horse and can not imagine a prettier sight. I also watch Blue galloping at dusk by herself, mane and tail flaring, playing Nightmare. I say hello to the wild gray bunny that comes out at dusk to feed on the grain spilled by the horses; sometimes I can get within six feet. I call it Nicky (ie), because of a nick in his/her left ear. I see the rare pileated woodpecker working on our deadwood; that's the largest woodpecker in our nation, and that species will be preserved as long as we have deadwood. I see the wild deer, and the big box turtles, and hope for a glimpse of an armadillo. I see the myriad spider webs, fogged by morning dew. The flowering cactus, like lovely yellow roses. And the confounded red-bellied woodpecker that sneaks into our coop to peck neat holes in the eggs; now we have to race the little critter to the eggs.

There are other pleasures. I watch the sales figures for my novels, doing better and better. I like competing, however briefly, with the mainstream blockbusters for space on the bestseller lists. I've been answering fan mail at a rate as high as one per day; it does take time, and I am excruciatingly jealous of my time, but I do value these contacts with those who are moved by my work. I know that, all things considered, my life is a happy one, and it is better that I dwell on that than on the prospect of eventual death. Is this a sufficient philosophy for existence? I don't know. I feel a certain guilt because I am unable to solve all the problems of the world, but I hope that I am doing my little bit to alleviate one of them.

I think my most significant personal revelation is that life changes hour by hour and minute by minute, like the constant flowing of a river. I am not quite the same person today that I was yesterday; small aspects of me have changed, physically and mentally. I will change a little more by tomorrow, and a great deal more in the course of future years. To try to hang on to one particular section of life, such as the one I am experiencing at this moment, is foolish; it can't be done, and if it could be done, it would not be worthwhile. Change is much of the essence of life. Death is the final change. We can not hold on even to a day; how, then, can we capture life itself? Perhaps our whole awareness of individuality, of self, is an illusion. If so, it is better not to grasp unduly at that illusion, but rather to live our lives in such a manner that when we must at last lay them down, we will not be ashamed. Life has meaning only if we live for meaning.

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob

May 17, 1982