What would you do if there would be no consequences?

photo credit: Jeff Belmonte

That’s pretty much what I hear when I’m asked the question, “What would you do with an hour to live?” Lots of things run through my mind, but most of them would probably take more planning than an hour really gives you time for. Now the nature of my demise would also affect what I spent my last hour doing. Like if I was given irrefutable proof that I was going to die of something sudden and unexpected by the population at large, say, a massive aneurysm, then I would probably spend a few minutes of my last hour filling out a pretty danged good life insurance policy. You’ve got to make sure the parents, siblings, and monkeys are taken care of.

After that, things get a bit more interesting. DarkStarBurning supposes that there are 2 types of people, Romantics and Hedonists. I suppose to a degree, she’s right. I think there are definitely some subgroups in those two. There are the romantic types that would want to spend their last hour staring longingly into the eyes of their one true, and there are the romantic types that would surround themselves with family and friends and party until the appointed time is upon them. On the flip side of the coin there are the hedonists that would drink and orgy themselves into the hereafter, and then there is me.

I guess you could chalk it up to good parenting that my entire life I’ve been afraid to do anything “wrong” because I was afraid I’d get caught re-enforced by the fact that I always have. Its left me, in my late 20’s with a lot of those “teenage rebellion” things I’ve never actually done. I don’t suppose I would start with many of them now. There are plenty of things that have consequences that don’t just involve me, and I wouldn’t be doing anything like that. As fun as it might be with no consequences at all, I’m not going to get wasted, steal a sports car and go careening down the freeway at 160 miles per hour. Actually, if I was dying, and it was a closed highway, that might be doable for me.

The part of me that really gets torn, though, is the part that thinks about what happens to those I leave behind. I mean, I could use my last hour on Earth to make it a better place and eliminate the entire Phelps family in a way that someone can assure the population was God punishing them for their sins, but then my family would have to deal with the stigma of being related to a murderer. Really, consequences would still be holding me back, I suppose. There are other things, of course. We all have secrets we want to tell, things we’ve hidden from everyone, maybe even our selves. I’m not sure I could actually tell anyone still, at the end of my life either. I don’t keep these things as a secret for myself, usually, but I don’t want to burden others with them.

Maybe I’m boring, but I think I’d spend my last hour pretty much how I spent all of the hours before that. I’d eat a bucket of fried chicken from KFC, then sit down on the couch with a glass of tea, and probably give my parents a call.  I simply don’t have the drive or resources to do much more than that. I’d just like to go out peacefully and happily.

Or conversely in a giant ball of fire surrounded by the cries of my enemies. Blaze of Glory, right?