If You Get Too Scared of Dying, You End Up Wanting to Die

　When I’m walking outside, I’ll suddenly look up at a building or an apartment block and think,

　“If I really felt like it right now, I could go in there and jump from the upper floors.”

　Every time, I picture myself actually doing it.

　And I shiver.

　It’s not like I always want to die.

　Sometimes I do, sure. But if anything, I think I’m more afraid of death. I always have been, since I was a kid.

　When I read the final chapter of Death Note, I was shocked to learn that even if you die, you don’t go to heaven or hell.

　If I die, I just go back to “nothing.”

　No, even calling it “going back” leaves a little hope behind.

　My brain activity simply stops, and I can never think again. 

　Forever, That’s all.

　In a way, it’s equal. I guess.

　I was so scared I cried under my comforter.

　Good people, bad people. Once you die, that’s the end.

　Reincarnation and the afterlife are things only people who can believe in a religion completely get to experience.

　I can’t become that kind of person.

　Even when I tried talking to people around me about it, all I got back was an awkward smile and, “Don’t think about stupid stuff. Go to sleep already.”

　Why are they smiling?

　Aren’t adults afraid of dying?

　There’s no way they’re that enlightened.

　They’re just looking away.

　Sure, it’s not something you can solve by thinking about it, so it makes sense to live without keeping it in mind.

　There’s no point in staying terrified of death forever.

　But then, is life just a process of stuffing your schedule with events and work so you can forget you’re going to die someday?

　Love, labor, rest. Is it all just to push the fear of death farther away?

　Takeshi Kitano said it in Sonatine.

　“If you get too scared of dying, you end up wanting to die.”

　I think he was right.

　If you’re going to keep suffering in that fear, it would be easier to just die for real.

　It defeats the whole purpose, but still.

　And even though I understand that, I end up wanting to die sometimes anyway.

　’Cause I’m an idiot.

　Religion has a side to it that dulls the fear of death and gives comfort to the lost.

　For the sake of peace after death, it makes people build virtue in this life.

　If everyone does that, the peace of the country is preserved, too.

　So I’ll become an angel who guides otaku.

　If people can be saved while they’re watching me, while they’re looking at the Internet Angel,

　if they can forget death for a while,

　and if that brings peace to the internet...

　I can’t guarantee what comes after death.

　But if, in the moments they’re watching me through a screen, they can feel that they’re alive, that’s enough.

　Through the pale light of the monitor, I go around soothing the loneliness of otaku.

　I am an angel of the internet.