If I Die Before I Wake

When I was a kid I decided that if I knew I was going to die I wanted to go one of two ways: sucked into a black hole, or eaten by a shark. Both of them are things that you can only experience in death. Now, sure, you could argue that ANY way you die is going to be something you could only experience by dying. But I was like, 7, ok? Plus, I don’t care to know how it feels to get shot in the face. I DO want to know what the inside of a black hole looks like, and I would like to get up close and personal with a shark.

I think the black hole thing makes universal sense. Who WOULDN’T want to get sucked into a black hole? I mean, sure, you’re probably going to get stretched and torn to pieces just on your way in. But, WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T?? Then you could at least get a minute or two of “HOLY SHIT!! This dimension is exactly the same except here ponies brush US! Numbers are sentient!!!” before the diabetes gets you.

The shark thing might be weirder. Sharks are fucking terrifying. They are real, live, murderous dinosaur monsters – they kill, they fuck, they die. That’s about it. No art projects, no dams or nests to build. Even bears take care of their young and like honey – that’s relatable. Sharks will fucking cut a bitch. If you look into the eyes of a tiger, you feel something. Look into a shark’s eyes? Nothing. Blank. Total murder. Somehow, getting very close to something that powerfully threatening is fascinating. But you can’t just touch a shark – I mean a REAL shark, not one of those tiny ones – you have to be ready to go all-in.

Plus, for just that one moment while it’s eating you, you are the most important thing in the world to that shark. There is no other way to have a shark give a shit about you. Maaaaaybe if you and Roy Scheider spend days on a boat trying to kill it, MAYBE then. But for the most part they just don’t care about you.  You could say that their brains are too stupid and primitive to care about anything, or you be cool and romanticize it like I did above.

Now, my mother reads this blog – so I am trying avoid the comparisons to  swimming nightmare dicks. But come on, they are. I mean, look at that photo. That is super sexy. I mean “scary”!  WHATEVER. If sharks aren’t an answer to vagina dentata, I don’t know what is. Women often get a bad rap for being attracted to “bad boys” or “assholes”. That seems misguided – I think maybe what we all really want is a supportive relationship with a nice cute guy, and then to be eaten by a shark. Or to get sucked back into a cosmic vagina.