I Went to a Garden Party to Reminisce

I’ve got no one. I’m alone. I’m housebound. I’m in pain…constant, gnawing, gripping pain. Nothing works for the pain…I do not want to live like this any more. Let me die, then there will be no more pain….

*

“All right, gentlemen. You saw and heard a woman in pain. She wants to die because she will no longer be in pain. Our problem for discussion is this:  Death is not a state of being. Once the brain dies, there is no “you.”  “You” no longer exist.  Yes, Socrates?”

“Do we consider the immortal soul?”

“You can argue whether such a belief invalidates death. You can argue whatever you want. You are Socrates. The Socratic Method can be found even on Wall Street. There are those who claim you were the first Stoic.”

“I just influenced them, especially with my catch phrase:  Know thy self.”

“Thank you, Socrates. Yes, Descartes?”

“Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am.”

“Excellent.  How about you, Aristotle?”

“I’ll raise him a sum, and see him a cogito.”

“Your epistemology is showing, Aristotle. You philosophers give me a hard time and I’ll bring out Kant and Nietzsche.”

“Yes, Claude Lévi-Strauss?”

“Would you be bringing out the Nietzsche before or after he went nuts?”

“Claude, your structuralism is hanging out and irritating me. You are an anthropologist, not a philosopher.”

“Babylon is toast, Diogenes. Your Stoicism is showing. I am more of an intellectual than you.  And I was not asking you–I was asking HER.”

“All of you, consider the word Quiet.”

“Plato, have you anything to say? Where is Plato? Has anyone seen Plato?”

“Yes, Spinoza?”

“Plato perceived a need to eliminate unwanted substances from his body.”

“Yes, Sartre?”

“Plato has the freedom to act as he pleases but he is constrained by his own ideologies. In this circumstance his need to urinate overpowered him.”

“Thank you Jean-Paul for that brief but enlightening look at existentialism. Yes, Camus?”

“I feel as though I am in the theater of the absurd. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Thank you for coming. And, you deserved the Nobel. Now, someone please check on Plato. Oh, thank you, Kant. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the relationship between reason and human experience in this specific context.”

“Must we?”

“Ah, Plato, there you are. You were saying?”

“The proper practice of philosophy is nothing else but dying and being dead. Yes, the Stoics followed this discipline and I was a student of Socrates. Memento Mori is Latin and it is said that a General of Ancient Rome was the origin of the phrase. Then came the Christians with their “Divine Judgment” and the concepts of Heaven and Hell in relation to salvation of the soul. The Roman Catholic Church is built on this tradition: remember you will die. Morbid but a truism.”

The Author apologizes for her tardy submission, okay? Listen, she’s sorry.

“Thank you, Plato…well spoken. Well, gentlemen.
Let us stop for a repast. There is a buffet in the Japanese garden. Has anyone seen Nietzsche?”

*

*

Flash Fiction Challenge #36 at Thain In Vain
Prompt:  Memento Mori (remember that you will die)
Word Count: 498
Clock image:  momothecat at deviantART

Very special thanks to the talented Ms Thain for hosting Flash Fiction Challenge at Thain in Vain