Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

ack. When people ask me why I don't travel more, I tell them:Because I'm afraid of death. Of course, they all hasten to assure methat there's no more chance of my dying abroad than at home, so Iexplain that it's not a fear of death in general. Dying itself doesn'tmatter to me, but not while I'm on the road. I don't want to die ina hotel room with my bags open and papers lying all over the place.On the other hand, an even more horrible death is one that's keptat bay by the miracles of modern medicine, a death that never ends.In the name of Hippocrates, doctors have invented the most exquisiteform of torture ever known to man: survival. Sometimes I even pitiedFranco, kept alive artificially for months at the cost of incrediblesuffering. And for what? Some doctors do help us to die, but mostare only moneymakers who live by the canons of an impersonaltechnology. If they would only let us die when the moment comes,and help us to go more easily! Respect for human life becomes absurdwhen it leads to unlimited suffering, not only for the one who's dyingbut for those he leaves behind.As I drift toward my last sigh I often imagine a final joke. Iconvoke around my deathbed my friends who are confirmed atheists,as I am. Then a priest, whom I have summoned, arrives; and to thehorror of my friends I make my confession, ask for absolution for mysins, and receive extreme unction. After which I turn over on myside and expire.But will I have the strength to joke at that moment?Only one regret. I hate to leave while there's so much going on.It's like quitting in the middle of a serial. I doubt there was so muchcuriosity about the world after death in the past, since in those daysthe world didn't change quite so rapidly or so much. Frankly, despitemy horror of the press, I'd love to rise from the grave every ten yearsor so and go buy a few newspapers. Ghostly pale, sliding silentlyalong the walls, my papers under my arm, I'd return to the cemeteryand read about all the disasters in the world before falling back tosleep, safe and secure in my tomb.