Notes Before Death: Three Essays

"I began this essay--which I have dashed off in a fretful compulsion over the course of a fortnight-- compelled by an instinctive conviction that, at the age of 44, my earthly life was near its conclusion. I was not sure—and I remain unsure—if this morbid intimation were based upon an accurate apprehension of impending death, or a kind of premature thanatos-thirst on my part. That is to say, I didn’t know—and still don’t know—if I feel the avid approach of the Reaper due to an accurate sense of him truly being near… or merely out of a WISH that he were nigh. Nor can I say for certain which of these scenarios is, properly speaking, more ominous: that death could possibly be closing in, or that I in fact WANT death to be near. What I can state without reservation, what I must in fact insist upon asserting, in the interest of honesty, is that I have lately experienced a death wish to an extent that is unprecedented in my personal experience." Includes three Essays by Andy Nowicki: "Notes Before Death" "The Suffering God and the Culture of Death" "The Street Hardly Understands"