A Blunt Introduction and End

When Augustan Blunt died it was not with anger or fury. He didn’t battle or rage against the dying of the light. Not that he had lived that way, at least not for a long time. He didn’t die with a sense of fulfilment or duty, nor did he die safe in the knowledge that his family and friends were cared for, for he had none that were living.

At the time of his death he wasn’t filled with remorse or a bitter sense of injustice although he did have the right to feel this way. There wasn’t a sense of relief that finally he had reached the end of the line. He did not wish the end would come sooner, but neither did he wish for a few more seconds of life. At no point during his demise did he ponder the question, why me?

He felt indifferent. As the life flowed out of him and he felt his physical self growing colder, emptier, and further away from the familiar comfort of being alive, he had no feelings one way or the other. Death was inescapable, he was well aware of that, and having no true belief or opinion on the matter of an afterlife he chose to ignore the possibility entirely.

If you had asked him what he thought happened when a person died he would not have divulged his thoughts on mortality. As far as he was concerned the shifting of a mortal coil was irrelevant, a meaningless inevitability. He would not have spewed forth a bilious attack on religious belief because he neither agreed nor disagreed with the concept of a greater being or a grand plan. Although if you had asked him what he thought he amounted to in the grand scheme of things he may have told you he was insignificant, which in itself might be considered some form of belief.

His past did not appear before his eyes and he did not reminisce however briefly on the stages in his life. He did not look back fondly on times gone by, and he did not consider all the things that he would never experience. When he finally choked, coughing out his death rattle he felt no need to whisper some poignant final words.

When Augustan Blunt died he did it without style or panache. He did it without making a statement. There were no tears as he died, from himself or those close by. It is important to note that his death wasn’t business-like either. He did not believe that his life had a limited period and that like some contract his period on earth had ended with no hope of renewing it. At no point did he wonder if his body was a vessel to carry his non-corporeal self that had simply broken down, the extended warranty period over only a day before.

He did not wish that he had lived one more day, or that in the past he had lived his life to the fullest. He did not believe that he was soon to be transported to some higher plane with cherubs playing harps and half naked women simply waiting to inflate his ego.

It was not his belief that he would be pulled down into the fiery torment of hell where he would live out every cruel injustice he had inflicted on others for all eternity, although there was a distinct possibility of it happening.

He did not desperately with his final vestige of strength remaining reach towards the sky and try to grasp at what was not there. There was not music playing in the background and there was not the panicked work of doctors or paramedics trying to keep him alive. He did not consider that he might be missed or fondly remembered.

At no point did a partner burst onto the scene wrap their arms around his body as the life dripped from him and scream, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Into the air furiously raging against the injustice of it all.

With his dying breath he didn’t claw at his weapon, or manage with his last vestiges of energy to lift a gun firing off one last shot to kill the man who took his life. He didn’t carry a gun.

None of this happened.

When Augustan Blunt died...he simply died, it is what he did after that changed him.