The Second Coming

himself, but I do know. I know. I know the name of the enemy.
    The name of the enemy is death, he said, grinning and shoving his hands in his pockets. Not the death of dying but the living death.
    The name of this century is the Century of the Love of Death. Death in this century is not the death people die but the death people live. Men love death because real death is better than the living death. That’s why men like wars, of course. Bad as wars are and maybe because they are so bad, thinking of peace during war is better than peace. War is what makes peace desirable. But peace without war is intolerable. Why do men settle so easily for lives which are living deaths? Men either kill each other in war, or in peace walk as docilely into living death as sheep into a slaughterhouse.
    Why do men walk like sheep straight into the slaughterhouse? Why are people content to stand helpless while their lifeblood is drained away?
    Men in this century are no different from the Jews at Buchenwald who did not give themselves leave to resist death.
    I know your name at last, he said, laughing and hooting hee hee hooooee like a pig-caller and kicking the tires, and you are not going to prevail over me.
    Old father of lies, that’s what you are, the devil himself, for only the devil could have thought up all the deceits and guises under which death masquerades. But I know all your names.
    Here are the names of death, which shall not prevail over me because I know the names.
    Death in the guise of love shall not prevail over me. You, old father old mole, loved me but loved death better and in the name of love sought death for both of us. You only kissed me once and it was the kiss of death. True, death is a way out of a life-which-is-a-living-death. War and shooting is better than such a peace. But what if there is life?
    Everybody has given up. Everybody thinks that there are only two things: war which is a kind of life in death, and peace which is a kind of death in life. But what if there should be a third thing, life?
    Death in the guise of Christianity is not going to prevail over me. If Christ brought life, why do the churches smell of death?
    Death in the guise of old Christendom in Carolina is not going to prevail over me. The old churches are houses of death.
    Death in the form of the new Christendom in Carolina is not going to prevail over me. If the born-again are the twice born, I’m holding out for a third go-round.
    Death in the guise of God and America and the happy life of home and family and friends is not going to prevail over me. America is in fact almost as dead as Europe. It might still be possible to live in America, said the nutty American dancing in place in old Carolina.
    Death in the guise of belief is not going to prevail over me, for believers now believe anything and everything and do not love the truth, are in fact in despair of the truth, and that is death.
    Death in the guise of unbelief is not going to prevail over me, for unbelievers believe nothing, not because truth does not exist but because they have already chosen not to believe, and would not believe, cannot believe, even if the living truth stood before them, and that is death.
    Death in the guise of the new life in California is not going to prevail over me. Marin County and the Cupps are not going to prevail over me. But what if the Cupps and Marin County should prevail? Then the Germans and my father are right and war is better than peace, true death better than the living death. But it will not prevail over me because I know the names of death.
    Death in the form of isms and asms shall not prevail over me, orgasm, enthusiasm, liberalism, conservatism, Communism, Buddhism, Americanism, for an ism is only another way of despairing of the truth.
    Death in the guise of marriage and family and children is not going to prevail over me. What happened to marriage and family that it should have become a travail and a sadness, marriage till death do us part yes but long dead before the parting, home and fireside and kiddies such a travail and a deadliness as to make a man run out into the night with his hands over his head? Show me that Norman Rockwell picture of the American family at Thanksgiving dinner and I’ll show you the first faint outline of the death’s-head.
    God may be good, family and marriage and children and home may be good, grandma and grandpa may act wise, the Thanksgiving table may be groaning with God’s