Time Under the Sun – I once heard in an older video of Christopher Hitchens where he said that the difference between the totalitarianism of North Korea where you have to endlessly praise and worship Kim Jong-un and that of an eternity in heaven forced to do the same for god was that ‘at least in North Korea you can fucking die’. In the same talk, or perhaps it was in a different one – they sometimes blur together in my mind, he postulated that it was good that he would one day die, which he did all too early, as that would make way for his children. This was in contrast to the idea of an eternal god-father ever present, never letting his children become independent. I think of this, not as a fantasy of patricide, but rather in contemplating my own death. The insightful comment by Hitchens has always stuck with me, that for me or any of us to exist there must be those who came before us, who had to die and make way for us. That is profound and gives me some solace, if still no meaning, in my death. If we all get a shot at this life, then we also have to let it go so that others may as well. That is the deal, we are given room to live so long as we one day make room for others, though ignore all the empty and available space. This is the thought behind this comic, where an aged tree in the twilight of its life is contemplating its death. We do not hear, though maybe Mungi has, of any regrets or happy thoughts or pains that will soon be eased, though those are all certainly present, but only the deeply philosophical contemplation of what happens after death. Not an afterlife or an eternity of existing, but rather of returning to nature so that others may live. That to me is profound, it is sacred and worth more than an eternity in paradise. Thus Jesus Christ’s great sacrifice is not giving up his body for our sins, but so that his molecules, his body and blood, may be used by others so that they may live. And if all those that come after us hate life, finding it meaningless, and detest existence, well that is for them to decide and no one else. – Zachary