what's the worst way you'd like to watch someone die?

In his sleep. It would be so boring.

Definitely, burning to death. It is so slow and painful. I don't know if I'm understanding this properly. That is the worst way I can conceive of someone dying. I really would pass on watching, thanks.

what is the most horrible death that you'd be willing to watch, and why would you like to watch? (sorry, sometimes I should try to be clear instead of succinct...)

Hollywood film deaths are pretty entertaining.

I would have to say the electric chair. I have seen illegal films made of actual executions and it looks fascinating. And the person has to die that way anyway.

Dunno. What's my motivation for watching this death? Entertainment? Academic interest? The watchee's been fucking [with] my kid? Entertainment: Putting the victim in one of those big, spinning-drum amusement park rides and turning it up to eleven. Academic Interest: Blowing the victim out of an airlock into empty space. I've always wondered about the whole blood-boiling-away-before-body-explodes-in-a-big-poof-of-freeze-dried-corpse-dust thing. As to the last, I'll get back to you if I ever have to find out...

tie him down, look him in the eyes, ampules of ammonia in each nostril, and tear small strips of skin off layer by layer.....reminding him of all the wrongs he's committed against me with each strip of skin.....this should take a few days.

ohmygod! how disgusting a topic is this? i would never want to watch someone die! and rlysr (how do you pronounce that exactly?), you sound like you've got this all planned out. got anyone in mind?

I'm a Vietnam veteran and can't imagine that anyone who has actually watched another person die would want to repeat the experience. Someone has watched too many movies.

Oh God, John, I am sorry...Welcome home and thanks for getting on with your illustrious life. I cannot imagine, either.

I don't care if my life is illustrious or not. If I can figure out some way to keep paying the bills, boring is just fine, thank you.

I understand completely. Welcome to Hilo! I hope we can make it at least interesting for you...*smile*

My named is pronounced " rillis". R is the first letter in my last name. I thought this was a topic on the worst way to watch someone die. It is not something I would personally ever participate in. I read about it in an autobiography. Perhaps I should refrain from posting in what appears to be a private conference.

rlysr, please don't be offended away... you certainly hit bang on topic, which is something few of us are able to manage on a regular basis... I must agree, that is one of the worst ways I care to think of and, honestly, considering the title of the topic, I don't think any post would be pleasant to read... btw, did you get that from Silence of the Lambs?

Thank you for making me feel welcome.After posting, and feeling like I had offended people, I was not going to return... I read that in a book about 10 years ago, and don't remember the title right though. It's driving me crazy not to be able to recall it !!! The book was a paperback picked up in an airport gift shop. It gave me the willies for days.I am not a violent person, or particularly into crime books.....just had a long flight & the book jacket caught my eye. Silence of the Lambs was certainly full of shocking things, the skin jacket was pretty hideous. Are new folks welcome at most conferences ?

New folks are always welcome. We were all new, once! Welcome *amile*

That should read *Smile*... and you would not consider doing what you said...would you?! (...and who has not entertained such ideas when infuriated?)

I would never consider that.....it was just the most horrible thing I had ever heard of, of doing that to someone. I can't think of anyone I would wish that on. Some of the coastal Native Americans had a unique way of torturing captives. They were buried in sand up to their neck at low tide and left to Mother nature. I remember reading that as a child and thinking it must be the most awful way to die. I would never let my siblings bury me in the sand during summer holidays in Florida !!!

ha-ha! I remember wanting to do that EXACT same things to my siblings a few times! Welcome to the Spring, rlysr. Do you have anything pronouncable we can call you???

rlysr... I AM quite the fan of horror/murder/mystery novels. They always care the bejesus outta me but... can't put 'em down... "Hannibal" is the sequel to "Silence of the Lambs"... equally as shocking... or more so... Brett Easton Ellis however, really hit my tolerance level though... I read "American Psycho" nearly ten years ago... I still remember scenes VIVIDLY... spooky $hit! Of COURSE you're welcome to wander around... check out the other conferences at will!

Ree-head... talk about pornouncable names! *grin*

damn... I MEANT PRO-nouncable... not the former... oops! *giggle*

was that a freudian slip, my dear? rlysr, you weren't offensive, just actually staying on topic, what a concept!! you got that stuff out of a book? geeze louise!! well, i'm glad about that, it's better than being something you dreamt up *grin*

But, who's the guy you wanted to exact this terrible stuff on? Or is that in the book too? I never read that stuff - life is scary enough for me...!

...and I think Stace had it right the first time. Killing/torturing someone is the very essence of evil and as such it is pornography in the rawest sense.

Stacey, you read Hannibal?? I saw a review of it in the Sunday Telegraph - it looked absolutely GROCE! Is it worth reading?

Death. And dying. Now these - thanks for pointing this out, John - are not very nice things. I used to work in a hospital, and always had some elderly people that I used to look after a bit more often . You know, when I was on that floor, just pop in the room, etc., hold their hands, help them being moved, talk and listen to them - nothing special, just regular, normal things. Bringing the blood samples to the lab, wondering perhaps how anybody with blood as yellow and thick as you would sometimes see could still be alive t all (you know, the hepatitis- and liver-damage cases with yellow eyes, etc.). Need I say that these people were dying slowly, most of them? Illnesses and age, and they went sometimes easily, and sometimes violently. For the latter case, I'll spare you the graphic details.- Anyhow, I never actually sat besides a person that died. Never. Never want to, but who knows? Perhaps one day, I will have to. And be strong enough not to burden the other with my emotions, and help coping with pain and fear. In the hospital, I had to take the bodies from the rooms to the morgue, and would ocasionally help laying them in their coffins, too, whenever the undertaker came to fetch them. Do the last things I could do, not seldom for people I had known to check in and out of the hospital for y ars, had helped to take care of them. Death is an absurde and grotesque thing, even if doesn't come in violent doses. And it is natural and a fact of life. It is not something I wish to encounter, no matter in what form. It is something I cannot evade, though. Even if it's not somebody else, one day, it'll be my turn to go and embrace my decay. And until then, every day brings me nearer, as I age and use up my time. I would not want to see this, or even live through it. But I do, and I will make the best of it.- Hello Rlys R.! Welcome to the Spring - you sure made a splash, and I'm looking forward for more to come...

Yep Ree-head... I enjoyed the story Descriptions are often pretty grotesque but I developed a real affection for Hannibal Lecter. In the first book, the audience wasn't made aware of the details of his crimes beyond the gory superficial... but 'Hannibal' was brilliant, truly brilliant with greying the line between admiration and horror. The people who 'get it' seem to me to deserve it and I fell in love with the ending... which is something I can rarely say about a horror/psycho thriller. Alexander... my fascination with horror novels strongly opposes my often irrational vacillation between fear of death and acceptance. Until I was 23 years old, I refused to walk into a cemetary. Wouldn't walk in. As if death were catching or something. I'm terrified of skeletons, so I proclaimed (at the age of eleven) that I intended to be creamated, I don't want to resemble death for even a short period of time, nevermind eternity (or whatever the half life of calcium is...) I respect your statement above... especially the last paragraph... And I think it will take me a lifetime to come to terms with the fact of death.

my brother worked in a hospital as part of his stint in the army. he told me about moving a woman he had talked to. she died on the gurney as he was transferring her. i felt so terribly for him. death is not the gory thing. it is a natural part of life. but what's gory, is sitting here wishing bad things on other people. that's sad, sick, and horrid. remember that what you wish on someone will come back to you ten fold.

Thanks for saying that - it is important to realize the difference between someone's fiction writing for profit, and another's perverse ideas of putting them into practice. Can we get off this topic...Please?!

Alex...thanks for putting this topic into its proper perspective and Marcia for crystallizing the essence of this (debate?) (discussion?) (debacle?) into a single sentence.

I do wish its creator would come and "kill" (unfortunate word used to delete the topic) this. Any time would be excellent...the sooner the better!

It has been interesting, though. I have been told that especially for Americans, death is a taboo. Sure looks like it, if you want to kill the topic!! The question of wanting to see someone die is very good and I understand it as great irony. Wasn�t it 200 or 2000 murders and deaths per week that we see in the tv and as if that wasn�t enough, we devour horror and detective stuff with killings and cruelties, let alone all the news stories about them. People want to see people killed in various ways, that�s a fact. Probably because unlike generations before us, we don�t need to encounter death or dying very often in real life. Still we have this strong need to deal with it because it�s the ultimate mystery, even more incomprehensible than birth. It has become something "absurd and grotesque" in our minds, which it really is not.

Elena, here I thoroughly agree with you. The greatest cause of our fear of Death is ourselves; and the fact that we don't treat it with respect - it has become a sensationalized spectacle. I think being born must be at least as painful as dying; but we see it as a miracle, because we know what happens after being born. We cannot think the same way about something that is a mystery to us, and therefore we are superstitious. That is understandable, of course. But why turn it into such a show?

Hey, I want to be bold to! I mean, use bold letters! Death is okay. I lived above a coffin-storage of an undertaker's place for years, also next door to my favorite cemetary for years, and visit cemetaries whereever I travel. The customs with which the people treat their dead are very interesting, as are the decorations of the sites they put them. And it is no horror to have to handle a dead person. But it sets something straight in your head, something people who haven't experienced this might not understand. The effect is especially strong if there you knew the deceased. It's the dying. (Elena! How nice to meet you here again! And how right you are - the fact that nobody experiences death anymore secondhand - like killing stock on a farm, or a grandparent liveing in the same house, etc. - makes much difference. But to me, still, death IS absurde and grotesque. Why this person and not that? Why this way and not another? Now, not later? Stupid and silly questions, but these are my feelings. It is stupid, silly and nonrational, but then, nonrational is how I am...)

(...not to mention other things.) The dying, the idea of pain, loss of options and souvereignity over oneself. Fortunately, both my grandfathers had not hard struggle, so my options are good that it won't be as bad as it can get (provided no illness or accident slips in first).

I have no objection to the discussion as it is going now. I was extremely offended by the thought of someone plotting to terminate another's life with as much pain as possible to avenge wrongs or some such reason. Perhaps, since this is not my topic, I should just stay out of the discussion. Go to it. Encourage carnage on upon each other of the irate and deranged. Heaven help us all!

Hello all, The easiest way to pronounce my name is "rillis". Thank my hippy parents. I never intended to offend by posting. It was an autobiography book, and I was horrified by that death scene. I read a wide variety of books, including horror. I generally avoid true crime books, preferring fictional horror. My job for most of my life has included working with very ill people. I think it's a rewarding career to help someone have a "good" death. By that I mean a peaceful, dignified passing. Sometimes all that is necessary IS a kind attendant, family or professional, to hold a hand and speak gently. I was with my grandfather for weeks as he died. Towards the very end, he was not often lucid, but when he was, he believed that he was surrounded bu friends, doing things he loved doing. The last three days of his l fe, he was building a house "in a beautiful meadow". He would wake up and look me in the eye, and tell me "look out honey, I dropped a nail" or he would ask for a tool. In his mind he was there in his meadow building his home.....I was very saddened by his death, but comforted to know I was with him building his house. I am a sensitive, loving person. Is there a conference anyone could suggest for me to start over, let you all know I am not a bloodthirsty killer - LOL !! ??

Marcia, don�t stay away!....I know what you mean, this first looked like a topic from hell and I�m glad that Alexander and Wolf brought it back to reality. (Alexander)And it is no horror to have to handle a dead person. But it sets something straight in your head Yes, exactly. It�s hard to describe what happens in your mind in a situation like that. It makes you face reality in a new way. There�s some sort of great dignity in a dead person and it makes you understand something important about life and yourself and people around you. And for me an experience like that meant that I started to really seriously dislike violence as entertainment in movies and books.

rlysr, there is Geo...totally devoid of anything nasty but full of fun graphics...it is my baby. http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/browse/geo/all and there is poetry, and paraspring, collecting, books, news, tv and all sorts of fun places to read and post. Feel free to wander =)

Welcome again Rlys, to the show that never ends... The Five Ring Circus... The Biggest Show on Earth! If you please, take a peek at music... Food is cool (food always is, right?)... And for serious stuff, we have InternationalConflicts, which lays a bit dormant right now... but could use insightful attention. Your grandfather did not have a bad death; I am happy for both of you. These things, as more people here obviously know from experience than I thought, can come in worse qualities...

Do you like to eat? come play in the 'food' rillis. The bestest thing about this place is you don't need to 'start over' or explain yourself... you get to just be. sme people will like it... some people may not... but we'll all respect your honesty and interest!

nothing like having a typo when you're using Huge blue type face!

I do not fear death or dying. I have come to terms with my own mortality. But the only time I have seen human death, it has been of the violent variety. I have the utmost respect for nurses, physicians, orderlies, hospice volunteers, and others, whom I believe, as part of their job descriptions (whether local laws in U.S. jurisdictions agree with me or not), are charged with seeing the dying and especially the suffering, pass on with as much comfort and dignity as is possible.

Hiya, John, mark me up for ex-orderlies (though orderly is not what I am)... Hey, and I respect DJs! And radio-folks! Stacey, "And I think it will take me a lifetime to come to terms with the fact of death" , that is the wittiest thing that was said here, and that is what life is all about.

Hiya, Alex, thanks! Stacy, you have hit on something important. Maybe when explaining the "facts of life" to youngsters (hard enough for some parents), there should also be a conversation about the "facts of death." I love the scene in Patch Adams when Robin Williams (Patch) connects with the mean-tempered terminal cancer patient by death word association: buying the ranch, kicking the bucket, becoming worm food, achieving room temperature, headin' for the last roundup, etc. Having a laugh about it somehow takes it out of the realm of the occult and mysterious and humanizes it.

Sorry for misspelling your name, STACEY!

Thank you THANK YOU THANK YOU! John for the apology and then the correction! Silly as it may sound, the mispelling of my name is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves! You are indeed forgiven!

I humbly and gratefully accept your forgiveness. People have the right to have their names spelled correctly. Especially when they are sitting in front of me in black and white, and considering that I am not dyslexic.

it is so loud in here (closing the 'big' tags as I go...)

and the BOLD ones, as well...The Bold Ones! (E. G. Marshall?)

the man for whom i wrote a poem (the man that i know), died after struggling with cancer for 6 months (at least when he knew he had it). he shriveled up and whenever one individual would visit him, he would swear she brought her "son" with her. He would comment that he'd never met him before. He also said he was dressed up and smiling and waving. i believe it was an angel coming to comfort him. because the lady that visited often comforts the sick and lonely and is a devout christian (and a wonde ful woman, to boot!), it was only natural that the "boy" would come in with her. as i heard, ron died in peace in his sleep. God bless him!

and let me close out that tag *grin*

What a touching story, Wolf...

ok , my last time here !! I'll be seeing you in new places. Food, philosophy, and music sound pretty good.....thanks !

See you there, Rlys

I thought her earlier posting was rather amusing in the context of screwed. I think we overreacted, for no reason whatever, since ALL of us came up with rather ghastly ways to make people kick the bucket, and should apologize. Not a nice way to treat a newcomer.

After all, it was US who created the topic. If we didn't like it, we should reprimand ourselves.

Valid argument, but she was being specific as to why she was participating in it - I do not recall anyone else being so fiemdish about it...perhaps I over-reacted.

so rlysr, so does your first name begin with r too? how come you don't just spell rlysr as rizzer? and did you bring isabel with you?

No, she didn't. Keep guessing! (hehehe)

no need.....

Thanaptosis To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour comes like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;- Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air- Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings, The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods-rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste- Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful of the tribes That slumber in its bosom.-Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings-yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their las sleep-the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, teh sons of men, the youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow them. So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. --William Cullen Bryant, 1811

Thanks, John. I�ve always felt that living close to nature helps people to accept death and even big pain without fear, as a natural part of life. The endless cycle of birth and death in nature makes the human agony about death look very selfish. Every living thing has its time, longer or shorter. We humans tend to feel that we�re an exception of some kind among all living things just because of our larger brains, and that makes us protest against inevitable and perfectly normal things like ageing and dying. The problem is that we�re the only creatures on this planet who KNOW that there is a thing called death! Other creatures just live and then the living ends, no grief or "why me, why now" questions.

(Wolf: Already found out about me or just not nosy enough? I didn't want to seem unfriendly,though. I'm just another nosy "lurker" who decided to have her "coming out"... :-)

Oh, GOOD!!

Yoohoo, Riette!

Welcome Isabel, and Rlys too, if we haven't scared you away. Thanks for your commentary on what I think was a wise poem about death and our bodies "recycling" and replenishing Nature. Hard to believe, but Bryant was only 17 years old when he wrote that poem. The editor he sent it to thought it was a hoax from some established British poet, but it was just a portent of poetic greatness.

at first, i didn't realize it belonged here! but you picked a great place to post it, john! with the anonyminity of the internet and cyberspace, isabel, you could be anyone we imagine you to be or you imagine yourself to be. but one thing neat about the spring, we may use pseudonyms, but everyone knows who we are for the most part. so where are you from isabel? rizzer? oh, i'll go first, i'm the bayou babe everyone talks about *grin*

Thanks for the poetic confirmation, Wolf. Although it appears that your second remark is directed at Isabel--I couldn't be anonymous posting in the same conferences as Marcia. She knows me.

Elena, didn't mean to leave you out. Your remarks are thoughtful, and I believe, right on the money.

Thanks for your kind welcome. Can't sleep, because of a bad cough. Shouldn't smoke that much... so i'll wander around in Spring, "lurking" a bit more... Have to think a little who I am, or who I want to be... Pooh, This sounds too brooding, usually I'm not!

"Pooh"? Sounds like a stuffed bear, to me!

Should have sounded like a deep breath or something... I make funny noises sometimes ;-)

don't we all?

So - welcome Isabel, welcome Bayou Babe! "Stuffed Bear" - wonder what Riette makes of this... "Ain't nothing wrong with being a stuffed bear, only they got so glassy eyes!" Heck, looks like I *don't* even need anybody to comment for me, I get my own simultaneous subtitles... Noises - and you can bet I don't make funny noises! NEVER! My noises are well-thought up, serious and respectfully executed non-verbal audible communications. I MUST insist!

My noises are usually meticulously planned and perfectly executed, but once I ate an entire bag of olestra potato chips. So much for the best laid plans of mice and men...the noises I made shot right up to #1 on the chart...the FART CHART!

Alexander, have I just caught you openly admitting to being a Steiff?? Is that in every sense of the word, or just the ones that look the same? �blush� You do succeed in surprising me pleasantly at times.

Happy to do the latter... But don't you react freudian to anything that moves around here -- OOooops, this IS Screwed, after all, so it's alright, I guess... Naw, me no Steiff - see, I don't have a button on my earlobe...

I don't react freudian to this wallpaper, which reminds me of .... oh bugger, I do!! Bring your ear closer so I can have a better lick ... sorry, LOOK. Hmmm, nope, you're right. It's not a button, it's a hole ... no, no, a MOLE! ooh, This is like Christmas....

Riette, never do a psychoanalysis - the therapist would get a nervous breakdown (plus a wet ear!).

haha! The poor guy! "I never had a chance, officer! She said all these things, and then she came close, and - waaaah!"

Thanks for the advice, Isabel - I shall heed it under every imaginable circumstance! ... and then she came close, and - waaah! Can you keep me locked up until she's gone?'

hehe...

glad to see that we have degenerated even further into the screwed abyss... thought we were getting a mite too serious there for awhile!

Occasionally we try serious - somehow it never lasts very long thoug, does it??? ha-ha!

CORONER'S INQUEST. CAUSE OF DEATH: Drool from earlobe seeping into inner ear and corroding brain cells, causing subdural hematoma. Whatever that means...

isn't a hematoma a bruise?any doctors in the house????

Ask your brain-specialist "Dr. Isabel"! You're right, on your skin a hematoma is something like a bruise. In the head a hematoma is a clot of blood, it may cause apoplectic strokes, or if it is squeezing on the brain, it does severe damages to the braincells, like outfall symptoms of hole brain areas, often irreversible.

Very appropriate to the topic! OUCH!