Hugo Naijaman: RE: HUGO IS DEAD (FIGURATIVELY). I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KILLED HIM

Friday, February 13, 2015

MY WILL

WRITTEN FROM THE FIGURATIVE LAND OF THE FIGURATIVELY DEAD

[RE: HUGO IS DEAD (FIGURATIVELY). I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KILLED HIM]

Hugo Naijaman

PREAMBLE:

I have worked on drafts in an attempt to appropriately respond to the (Facebook) announcement of my obituary on my birthday, February 12, 2015 (link below). I am not sure whether to react to the figurative announcement of my death, to the announcement of my figurative death, or to the probably more sinister spectacle of having figuratively died from “causes unknown”. In the last few minutes however, I have decided to discard all the drafts and post this response instead. It is my will, which circumstances have forced me to write post-mortem, and which I bequeath to those I have figuratively left behind.

Many a man is not allowed the opportunity to read his own obituary, figurative or otherwise. Tributes and eulogies are traditionally rendered at a time when the words we speak and write can neither be heard nor read by the persons we refer to, as they are then already dead. The man has a singular opportunity therefore, who lives to see how people would react when he dies. Not many such men have passed before me. Not many more will come “me-after”. 

CAUSE OF DEATH:

Although the title of the post professes ignorance of the cause of my death, it does seem that the body of the obituary notice is an autopsy report of sorts, featuring within it a body of small evidences – pointers to what may have killed me. Central to these pointers, it would seem, is a political disagreement, a disagreement about a choice freely made to support one candidate over another, and the fallout from making a choice that is at variance with that made by people around me. It is not my intention to defend that choice here. Dead men do not make representations on their own behalf.

MY WILL:

I bequeath to all those who now consider me dead, their memories of my life. 

To those I inspired to be better people, to be thinking people, to be analytical people, I can only say I am happy to bequeath you that inheritance. 

To those I inspired to be less than they could otherwise have been, well, I was not an inspiration at all. You may need to learn to look upward for inspiration, not sideways, definitely not downward.

To those I did not affect at all in any way, well then, news of my death should not matter either. I pass from your lives like I have lived, playing no part, having no effect whatsoever, and so bequeathing nothing.

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This article has been written in response to the article by Amakeze, Michael Chigozie of February 12, 2015, entitled: "Hugo Is Dead (Figuratively). I Have No Idea What Killed Him"