Death of a Man

Let's call him Paris. Paris is a thin, insignificant looking fellow whose speech is without inflection or any particular emotion. Any emotion displayed seems but forced. With a little stretch of imagination, one can imagine him being dissatisfied with his lot in life, one can imagine his disappointing childhood and his unfulfilled dreams. Paris smiles a thin tentative smile when he sees you, and mumbles a hello in a low enough tone, so that your possible lack of response could be attributed to your not hearing him. Paris is the person everyone describes as 'steady' and 'dependable', and cannot think of anything else nice to say. Everyone knows a Paris, or can at least identify with him, for Paris is very human, the accumulation of one's worst fears and insecurities.

The objective is merely to present some sort of background for Paris, so what comes next would actually seem as a logical continuation of thought, rather than simply the output of a morbid sense of humour. How would you expect Paris to meet his (untimely) end?

Before outlining the possibilities, one may safely cross out certain possibilities. For instance, one would not expect Paris to go down fighting defending all that is precious to him. Neither would one expect him to get into a drunken brawl and get stabbed. For this is simply not his style.

For retaining the entertainment value of the blog, we will also eliminate mundane ways of kicking the bucket. So, Paris will not be killed in an air-crash or of heart failure (unless it is caused by shock). However, there could be a way he would die in a car accident...

One would imagine Paris to be a law abiding fellow, who lives by the rules. He would carefully drive his car, staying well below the speed limit, earning the curses of his fellow drivers who want him to get out of their way. He would pay his insurance on time, and never dream of running a red light. So, imagine Paris's consternation when he waits patiently for the light to turn green before he starts his engine (Paris is environmentally conscious and switches off his engine at traffic signals) and crosses the road, only to see a truck speeding towards him from the cross-road.

Paris has just a split-second to act. Only if he brakes immediately, or floors the accelerator can he hope to live! What does Paris do? He uses the split second to glance up at the traffic light ahead to ensure that it is green, and that he is not the driver at fault. The truck crashes into Paris' car (a second hand Maruti 800, lovingly cared for) and sends Paris to a better place, and the car to a junk-yard. Still, Paris dies happy, knowing that he lived by the rules, and died by them.

Paris is also the kind of person who would kill himself if he were to get into debt, not because he's afraid of going to jail, but because he's terrified of his wife and what she would say. While Paris' wife (a shrewd and cunning woman, who's older than him, wears a lot of make-up and is slightly chubby) would probably take out a life insurance policy on him, making herself the sole beneficiary, she would not get the spoils as Paris would be conscientious enough to wait for the policy to lapse before killing himself. His creditors wouldn't get any of their money either, and his death would be a disappointment to everyone concerned.

I believe that the scenarios outlined above are the expectations people have of Paris. It is quite possible that in his death, Paris would do what he would have dearly liked to do when he lived, surprise everyone by his actions. When people learn of how Paris throttled his nagging wife and was shot when attempting to escape to Nepal, they would ask themselves, 'Did we really know Paris?'

No one would have known. No one could have known. It's also quite possible that Paris' death would make people wonder and ponder if they really know anyone at all, and send them down a downward spiral, and at rock bottom, with not an ounce of self-confidence left in them, they would become the Paris they once knew.

Therefore, in his death, Paris spawns new Parises, and the vicious cycle continues until all of humanity is destroyed when a disgruntled Paris nukes everyone and everything.