Occasionally I Contemplate Murder

Well, I'm not overly familiar with any kind of dying - neither when inflicted by the will of a fellow human being, nor the dying by what is called natural causes. Certainly, it's all intriguing.

Murder in particular - how does it feel to be its victim?

There's one important difference between death from disease, from old age or accident, on the one hand, and on the other hand death by murder.

The so called natural means of departure are quite self-explanatory. Mostly one is well, although probably never enough, prepared for them.

In an accident, death may certainly be as sudden and surprising, as a truck blocking the way immediately behind a turn of the road. Either you have time to perceive what obstacle you run into, in which case no further questions need answering - or you don't, in which case there's no question at all.

Any which way, a mystery it's not.

Murder, on the other hand, gives birth to so many more questions - if you're given the time - insisting on being answered. Who did it? And why? Why!

I may find in my mind the explanation to what is done to me. Or they may be outspokenly given to me by my bane - something, by the way, I doubt that any murderer would supply, unless he thereby attempts to gain the determination needed to complete his deed. If that's the case, I'm convinced he will not succeed.

However, no matter how the murder is explained to me, still my mental ordeal isn't over. Not nearly.

What time I have left of conscious reasoning, I'll spend rapidly going over and over what actions of mine would have prevented this outcome. What had I done wrong? Why couldn't we, my bane and I, have found some less definite solution?

And what, oh what, kind of life will this deed prepare for my assassin? Will the murder really work to his advantage, even in the long run?

Thus, I would probably make this, my most important transition, in a state of utmost frustration.

Or would I become like a saint, and think first to forgive my murderer, like the heroes of both long gone and modern day legends always do?

Methinks - as long as it does not cancel his reservation in one or other hell - I'll be glad to forgive.

Don't punish my assassin, said the dying king Gustaf III of Sweden, when shot at the masquerade of the Opera, in 1792. Did he seriously believe they'd ever let that captain of the army, who had fired his gun into the king's abdomen, walk away a free man, to be punished in this earthly life only by his own conscience?

Had the king been convinced that his subjects would obey this, his last command - would he still have made it?

I wonder.

Unlike modern day bullets, the unassorted pieces of lead in captain Anckarstrom's pistol hit so inaccurately, it took the king two weeks to die. He had time to ponder the murder.

Yet, it's not, I believe, a very agreeable state of mind to be in, at the moment of leaving one's mortal coil:

Frustration, and maybe bitter thoughts of vengeance.

Perhaps there are no ghosts at all. But if there are, I can think of no better melting pot for them, than people being the fatal victims of worldly plots of their fellow men.

If there is such a thing as a soul, how can it possibly turn away from an event this traumatic, to enter the tranquility of the hereafter?

One cannot go without some peace of mind.

Is it possible for the victim of a murder to come to peace with it, gracefully succumb to the laws of biology, and leave? If he cannot - what kind of death will that be?

One should be prepared for death, in whatever shape it appears.

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