Truth is a Moving Target

I don’t know much about dying, because I’m a bit inexperienced. So far, I’m unable to recommend the experience.

For all of my life, metaphor has been my sword, my shield, my refuge. Two metaphors about death have served me well so far and I am just an humble writer who uses the tools at hand.

Until I grew up and became a person wearing loan applications on my outer clothing, I would be concerned with two numbers from the used cars on offer: frequency of repair and cost of repair. If the seller asked my plans for the vehicle, I expressed my intent to “drive it until the wheels fall off.”

That expression sounded to my rural Oklahoma ears much spiffier than most of the cars on offer to my income level appeared, but I learned later it was as common as horny toads in West Texas, particularly around college campuses and the main gates of military installations.

The way the metaphor played out in the real world involved keeping a list of needed repairs. When I started, I considered a dead engine, transmission, or rear end to be evidence of a dead car, because the cost of needed repairs exceeded the “book value” of the car, assuming it was new enough to have a book value.