COHEN'S CONCOCTIONS #8

AN IMPROVE-THE-WORLD SCHEME, PUT INTO PLAY BY A BALLPLAYER FORCED INTO RETIREMENT

The ballplayer had reached the end. But he hadn't reached for it -- it came to him, of its own accord unhelped by his reluctance to call it quits.

They had to rip his uniform off his back, but despite a recent bath, the uniform and his skin had joined stuck like the inside-outside layers of such a selfsame fabric that cloth and flesh unpolarized between nature and artifice.

Retirement was like starting out on a new non-career as a whole new rookie, whose statistics were blank on the page yet.

He had amassed, through a near-hall of fame career, steadily increasing salaries to the tune of a well-heeled fortune. How could he reward the earth for the lucrative power of his unasked-for body?

By devising an improve-the-world scheme. There was a plague of suicide-bombers all over, killing innocents. How to dissuade such rampant slaughterers? By disillusioning them of unrealistic expectations of there being a heaven as an after-death payment for sacrificing their lives in the self-same explosions that deprived others of the same precious substance.

Using his career-earned millions, the now-retired ballplayer hired eminent scientists from nations friendly to all suicide bombers, to create a well-documented group scientific Proclamation to be read by future volunteer suicide bombers to the effect that suicide doesn't pay off, since death instantly ends consciousness so that even if there was a heaven it couldn't entertain the senses of anyone who died, since those senses had no more existence.

Self-death was certainly a foolish move, declared the Proclamation. It would also end the chance of changing your mind about killing yourself once the deal had done itself, since death offers no second chance.

So, the Proclamation asked, what's the point of ending your life by suicide, since nothing will reward such a deed, it proclaims its do-er as by definition the quintessence of an absolute loser. "Wise up," the Proclamation said. "If you kill yourself, what's left? Nothing, and nothing has no heaven to reside in, no matter what the real-estate market at the time offers to anyone at whatever income at his or for that matter her disposal, such as the case may be. Let's be realistic. Even if heaven were conceivable, your death by suicide leaves you with no mind left to live it up there, to enjoy the non-available heaven to the hilt.

"Don't be a delusory fool, tilting against windmills. The odds for a productive afterlife stand at a million to nothing. At those odds, what's in it for you? From the self-interest point of view, the nil you gain amounts, in practical terms at any currency, to no gain in sum total. That's all you get, for all your efforts in pulling off a successful suicide bombing. So as scientists, we advise you, for the sake of your lives, not even to TRY suicide. As you'll never see, it makes no sense. So what's the point of that? We, the undersigned of this Proclamation, have devoted our lives to science; and what you've just now read concludes our joint professional findings. If you dare not to respect our opinions, that's your business. But if you want to stay in business, take our advice and wise up, before it's too late. If it's too late, you'll have no regrets, but is that a consolation? Don't fool around with death, it's too risky -- but you'll never find out."

The retired ballplayer paid the scientists for their Proclamation, which he had printed in leaflets in all the appropriate languages, to distribute among future would-be suicide bombers wherever they still existed. Then he sat back, with the future balancing itself.

Marvin Cohen is the author of several books including Baseball The Beautiful (1974) and a former creative writing teacher at the New School. Marvin plays first base for Softball For The Love Of It.