Friday, May 8, 2015

Southern Belle, Part One


Death may be like finding out the kettle is whistling before you’ve had a chance to prepare the coffee grinds because you’re busy doing something at the sink. Oh Kat, up until the last day you lost your fight you never left the kitchen long enough to realize you were disappearing.

When I think of Kat there’s a quote from Macbeth that comes to mind. The line, spoken by a minor character, occurs at the start of the play and refers to the death of the Thane of Cawdor: Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it. Cawdor has his tangle with the grim reaper, loses of course, but comes out smelling like a rose. The same fate awaits Macbeth- in essence, it’s life as a series of moats, crossbows, the occasional and inevitable ferocious battle, after which you expire, and in some cases, nobly.

What does all this have to do with Kat? This may be a far cry from a Shakespearean tragedy, I definitely am a minor character on the world stage, and in essence it’s just the story of an ordinary woman. But along with the noble strivings and cruel smites of destiny, it did occur to me that Kat’s demise was like a twisted version of that very sentiment from Act I, only in reverse- it seemed nothing “became” Kat’s family so much as her departure from it. That is not to say they were “evil” and certainly not overly ambitious, as in truth they mostly liked to hang out and get high. But did they really have to soak up all those condolences in the same stupid, smiley, self-centered, mindless way in which they sucked the life out of her?

You’re probably wondering what I mean by that allegation, so let me begin at the beginning. . . .


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