Morbid Fascination

It can be tough to be a compassionate human being.  I would love to tell you that I was above all morbid curiosity and had no desire to see anything horrible happen to another human being.  I think a lot of people would like to feel that way.  I am willing to bet most people tell other people that they are not the type who would slow down to peer at the plastic-covered body at the side of the road where the car accident occurred.  Having sat in enough gapers-delays I can tell you that most of those people have to be lying. 

Another person dying, no matter what that person may have done, is a disturbing thing.  I don’t really care how cast-iron your stomach is when you see someone die and it is done violently it has to have an effect on you.  Millions of dollars and hundreds of hours are spent trying to train soldiers and others who may have to take lives in the course of their day-to-day jobs so that they can shut down their emotions.  In years past, even as recently as the Vietnam War, it was thought you could simply take a soldier who was out dodging bullets and knifing the enemy on a Sunday and deposit him back in his regular life on Monday and everything would just be fine.  Of course we now know this is not the case. 

Much of basic training at least used to be about breaking down the emotions of the individuals soldiers so you could then build them back up into killing machines.  It can’t be easy to be a sniper and get a nice close-up view of the person you are about to kill and then see the damage your bullet causes once the trigger has been pulled.  The effort that goes into training people to be able to make that decision to pull that trigger and then move on to another target must be staggering. 

For the regular people out there, like you and me, we don’t even have that kind of training.  Of course the world certainly seems to have no shortage of sociopaths.  These are the people who see other people as toys and things to be played with but not actually felt for.  Those are people who would stand there and watch someone dying without feeling anything.  You sometimes see these folks becoming serial killers. 

Still, even those of us who are not serial killers have to acknowledge there are dark instincts in the backs of our minds.  We have a fascination with death.  We wonder how we will face our own.  We wonder what it must be like to be facing your death and knowing that in a moment you are going to die.  You have to wonder about what it must be like to be locked in a cell on Death Row and to be watching the clock knowing the last few hours, minutes and seconds of your life are ticking down.  I cannot imagine that.  I cannot imagine being calmly lead to a death chamber and being strapped down or tied up and behaving like I was simply on a trip to the dentist. 

So, it is with this curiosity that thousands of people have gone online to see the unofficial Saddam Hussein hanging.  The official one, of course, was released and it was silent and stopped just after that very large noose was placed around the man’s head.  Of course those who conducted the hanging are not being accused of not doing it with dignity and being chastised for hurling insults at the man before he died.  Of course, had not some guy snuck his camera phone into the chamber to film the thing we never would have known for sure about the taunts and jabs.   

At least three people have now been arrested for filming that unauthorized video and then posting it around the world.  I think the people involved are just embarrassed that what actually happened got out to the world so the rest of the world knows that, in many ways, the new boss is very much similar to the old boss.  Sure, maybe Saddam wasn’t tortured by having the bottoms of his feet whipped until the bled and then being hanged, but essentially it proved that entire part of the world is populated with nuts.  Sorry to anyone who may be from that part of the world, but you have to realize that to most of the planet you all look like lunatics.   

I have to admit I have looked at the video.  You don’t see the actual breaking of the man’s neck.  You see him fall from view and then get a shot later that shows his face twisted upwards and his neck obviously broken and his eyes staring blankly.  One thing I can say is that it certainly looks like his death was much faster and more humane that the people he killed using horrific poison gas and other horrible methods.   

That curiosity is there.  You just can’t help it.  I have it.  I admit it.  I am a writer and my books are filled with murder and murderers.  I have visited the idea of child-murderers up to three times in works of fiction I have written.  I simply cannot imagine anything more horrific or evil than someone who would hurt, injure or murder a child.  So, it is easy for me to pull this up as the ultimate example of evil when I want to create a truly despicable villain. 

I felt the urge a year or two back when the videos were being shown of hostages in
Iraq being beheaded.  I knew it was awful.  I knew it would haunt me.  I knew it would be some of the most horrific things a person could see.  Yet, with the internet the way it is now, I also know the unedited footage could be found.  I saw two of them.  Each was as disturbing and horrific as I thought.  Yet, I couldn’t help it.  I had a curiosity.  I wondered.  My imagination wondered what it must have been like to be there.  I could not imagine the fear. 

That darkness resides in all of us.  Some of us fight it better than others, I suppose.  I guess some could argue I am sick and twisted and weak for looking at these things.  I think that curiosity is natural for people.  What mystery could really be bigger than that of death?  Even those with faith in what awaits them in the afterlife still have to wonder about it.  Will it really be like you’ve always heard?  What if you’re wrong? 

It’s natural for humans to give in, at least a little, to the dark side.  Whether you slow that car down to check out how bad the accident is or pause to linger over a bloodstain you have given into that dark side.  I don’t think you should be ashamed of it.  It’s part of being human.  We should stop being afraid of being human as much as we are these days. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.