They Decide To Have No More Death

There is a group of friends, fifteen of them in all, who have known each other a very long time. In one year, three of them have died, leaving twelve. They are too young, this group of friends, to have had three of their ranks taken. So one day in May, in a house on a ridge overlooking a valley of heather and wheat, they meet to discuss what to do. After seven hours of ideas and deliberation, they decide that there will be no more death. They agree that none of them will themselves die, and that they will as a group work together to find a cure for this problem of dying too young. One of the group, Helen, draws up a petition and they all sign it. Another, Suze, begins, with twine and clay, to work on an anti-death device. Four more - Wilt, Bob, Antaea and Roy - build a lab in the basement, where they begin to experiment with gene therapy and thunder. At night they all sit on the floor by the fire and recount what they've accomplished, and speak about their friends who are gone. They talk about how Morgan, twenty-seven, heart condition, thought he could sing, though he could not sing, and how perfect he would have been for that recent TV show wherein the worst would-be crooner wins $100,000. Ginger was twenty-six and was killed when a train derailed instead of carrying her home. All of those assembled on the warm floor compare stories of when they first found out that Ginger's sweet, ebullient facade belied a quick cutting wit and X-ray eyes. One or two of them finds comfort in knowing that because these people - Morgan, Ginger, Richard - are gone and will do no more living, their lives can be summed up and dissected and turned into comprehensible narratives. A few of the assembled do this, silently, and smile at their concoctions The fire continues in the house and moths jump from the lamps to the windows to the ceiling and back again. Everyone talks and laughs but no one tells themselves stories about Richard, because Richard took his life, flew from a bridge, and no one wants to think about this because it might mean - almost assuredly did mean, they felt - that it was, in part, their fault. Who looked away? Whose door was not open? They go to bed, content in knowing that they have spent a good day doing good work (trying to solve this problem of dying too soon) and have done a good job of not talking about Richard. The next day they awake, none have slept but pretending they have, and they go back to work. Timothy and tanya build a catapult that would send a person to safety if death was approaching. Chrissy and Giacomo discover a way to live, forever, in a mirror made using smoke. And Mary - she with the mouth of a hundred curves - suggests that the remaining members procreate as much as possible, and overwhelm death with sheer members. Death will retreat, she says. Death will move on, knowing it cannot kill us all. And because Mary is the smartest of the group, and because her idea seems so practical and within reach, they all put aside what they're working on and work on her plan, first.

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A story I read this morning. It really got me. For various reasons.
I wonder, is it humourous at the end? Possibly? Or it's hinting at succcumbing to the way things are, or moving on. Is it hopeful? Or is it declaring defeat?
And the other thing is "why" the people do the things they do. Being in the current state that I'm in, I went straight to the immediate thoughts that concerns me....
Are they guilty for their friend's death? Is "inventing" a way to deal? Recover? Live in Denial?
And what the heck is with the ending!!!!

*Meh*