from: Leaving the Door Open

1.

He got his friends to agree to shoot him standing against a stone wall, somewhere in the country on a deserted farm. It was to resemble an execution, the plan cleared with the police, at whose headquarters he had signed attesting to his desire to be shot and, in clearing his friends, declaring his death a suicide that they were to help him to—at the peak of his strength.

Never to return to life in any form but that of earth itself, since earth was not fearful or joyous. And then he was followed, on inspiration, by his friends, one by one, each fired on by a diminishing squad until the last left was shot, as a courtesy by the police. Afterwards, the police shook their heads, puzzled, grieved and somehow angry at those bodies lying sprawled with outstretched arms and legs against the ground, as if pleading with the earth to let them in.