There once was a man terrified of death.  Upon giving it great thought, he decided that this fear was based on the idea that you only die once.  So, with great resolve, he decided to die each night instead of going to sleep.

He succeeded.  Each night, instead of sleeping, he died.  No breath passed his lips and no blood pushed through his veins.  He found it easy to die when he knew the next night he would die again, and the next night yet again. 

Several of his acquaintances learned of this practice by the practiced himself.  They laughed and thought it a ruse.  The man, in a languid fashion, described to the men the act of dying, and in their uncomfort with death, they became angry. 

“You are most certainly not the clever trickster you believe yourself to be,” they stated.

“Come tonight then,” he replied, “and witness me die.”

So one night, one of them, Tom, stood fast in the man’s house and watched him die.  As the man lay unmoving, Tom went up to feel his breath.  None passed.  Then he felt his heart.  No blood was pushed.  And so Tom fled the house, convinced that death had come at the most inopportune time. 

The next morning the man met several of his acquaintances , whereupon Tom turned white as a ghost and had to be lowered to the ground.  “You – you were dead!” he exclaimed.  The man simply smiled, and explained that he died every night, and it was nothing to be afraid of.  The men, all of whom were afraid of death, walked away from their friend mistrustful and a bit frightened.

That night, each man lay in his bed, and thought about dying.  “No,” they said to themselves, “I am not ready to die.  When the time comes I will be ready, but that is not tonight.”  The man, however, died again that night, as he did until he died a final time. 

By then, the whole town knew of his habit of dying and had accepted it.  They found their sadness for his final death to be a peaceful, sweet feeling, instead of a bitter, cruel sadness which most of us often feel at the deaths of others. 

None other followed the man's example except me, and so tonight I die with the ease of sleep.  I will wake tomorrow until I do not, and I do not fear not waking.  Impossibly, it it has become easier for me to die frequently, than to worry about dying once.

For Lila.