Facing Death

As told by Susan Owicki
March 25, 2001

(Note from Susan: As soon as I heard the topic of this service, I knew what I wanted to use for a reading. It was a science fiction story that I read when I was a teenager. I didn't remember the title or the author. But I have a lot of friends who read science fiction, and I figured it would be easy to track the story down. Well, that turned out to be wrong. I asked friends, family, co-workers, and two Internet mailing lists. A lot of people thought it sounded like a good story, but no one recognized it. So, what follows is a mixture of what I remember and how I imagine the story might have been told. If you recognize it, I would love to know about it.)

There is a planet, Elyria. Elyria floats around its sun at a distance of 100 million miles, give or take a little. 2/3 of its surface is covered with water. It has an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and oxygen. It is a planet where humans can live comfortably, where humans might have evolved.

But the creatures that did evolve on Elyria are quite unlike humans. They are larger, for one thing, and their predominant color is green. But what is most striking is that they can change their shape at will. When an Elyrian curls up into a ball, well, what you have is a perfect sphere. When an Elyrian is in a hurry, it can grow four legs - or four wheels, for that matter.

What would a human do on Elyria? Consider Roger Marks, M.D. Roger was assigned, in some bureaucratic mixup, to be a physician to the Elyrians. When he arrived on the planet, he found that most of his medical knowledge was useless. But the Elyrians patiently taught him about their anatomy and physiology, fluid though they were, and in time he became quite a good Elyrian doctor. And, in time, he began to think and perceive as the Elyrians do, although he never learned how to roll up into a perfect sphere.

One gift the Elyrians possess is that they always know when someone is about to die. Roger must have acquired that gift, for one morning he awoke and realized, without knowing how, that this was his last day.

The knowledge filled him with immense sorrow, for he loved his life. However, he left his home and walked to his clinic, as he did every day. His work was satisfying, and he knew of no better way to spend the day on which he died.

All the Elyrians who were waiting to see him knew at once what was in store. They sensed, too, how unhappy he was. It puzzled them, for they themselves have no fear of death. Still, they loved their doctor, and they tried to cheer him up. The first patient complained of toothache. Roger resurrected his dentistry training and begun to drill, until the mouth in front of him suddenly dissolved in laughter. Roger remembered that Elyrians have no teeth. And so it went all morning.

In the afternoon, his good friend Sala came to visit. She was the first who felt able to ask him why he was so pained. "Sala," he said, "after tonight I will be no more. I will never again see you, nor my other Elyrian friends, nor the dear beauty of Earth that was my home. Let me ask instead how it is that you Elyrians can face death so calmly."

Sala thought for a minute, and then a perfect hand grew from her back. For a few moments she flexed it lovingly, and then withdrew it. Her back was smooth, showing no trace of where the hand had been.

"To die is to go back into the whole," she said, "just like the hand went back into my body. The hand feels no pain. The hand does not regret. There is nothing to fear in going back into the whole."

Roger shook his head. "Is there ever a time when the part doesn't want to go back into the whole? Does the hand ever wish to continue as itself, to remain a hand? This is the pain I know."

Sala looked at him sadly. "It is rare, but sometimes this happens," she said. And she went away.