[Fiction] My Eulogy – Mea Culpa

[Christopher enters stage left, walking towards the podium in front of a coffin set up lengthwise but at an angle to the audience. The background is a clear night sky full of stars and the scene is moonlit. He had been tasked to read the eulogy his dearest friend, Alan, had prepared for himself, which was to be read at Alan’s funeral.]

I thank you all for coming this evening. I have intentionally arranged for my own self-written eulogy to be the last speech for today, the day you come to mourn my death. I regret that I have to speak to you like this, from beyond the grave. Please do not be mistaken that it is a mark of my insincerity. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. I feel the need to come clean, after a life of deception. I finally cannot leave these words unspoken. I thank Christopher for being so kind to read this to you, my own eulogy, written by me for the occasion of my own funeral. I of course cannot know if we command an audience or whether these words are spoken in vain into empty space. I am too modest to assume a crowd, and I will not waste this space of a few minutes to outline my accomplishments. I imagine the other orators would already have done so, some even in spite of their contempt for me. I forgive those also, I in fact owe them a great debt for being so generous with their presumably kind words, for who wants to be seen shitting all over another person’s grave. I will now even give them ammunition to fire, but may their bullets hit my targets.



My aim isn’t to shock you. I suspect that for those among you that truly mattered to me, you already knew my truth. You might even have understood why I hid it, you know my famed pragmatism, where I am pragmatic to the point of self-betrayal. But if you want to keep a secret, you must not even confess it to yourself.[1] How that is done is beyond me. I did as best as I could to live with my burden, with my lie buried just beneath the surface to conceal it from those whom, really, it did not concern.



Enough of this prologue. I shall delay no further. I confess, I am a follower of Galileo.



[Gasps from crowd]



Not that I knew the man himself, he was too great for me to ingratiate myself with him. Besides, there was always the possibility of guilt by association, so I never dared try. Shall I outline his theory? No. Unless you have been living under a rock, you already know enough about it to understand what I am saying.



[Christopher sips some water from a shiny broad wide glass]



It didn’t take me long to convert to his hypothesis. It wasn’t even much of a conversion. Once I understood what it was about, it became my truth rather naturally. It simply made sense.



Have some of you started to leave? Goodbye then. You might have learnt something, realise something about yourself and others also, but since you appear too small-minded to stay, my parting words for you are, please leave quickly, don’t hold back the others, thank you for coming, but seriously, goodbye.



[Christopher pauses, to allows them a moment to go.]



I shall continue, pardon the dramatics. As I was saying, I am a follower of Galileo.



Once I stopped the self-denial and tried to digest it, I realised it was simply the truth. I couldn’t help it anymore, I could no longer un-see what I have seen. How can one turn away from what is the nature of the universe? Others somehow managed it though. Even more did after they saw what happened to Galileo at trial.



However, even I, I who in my heart am his faithful follower, get why he had to be stopped. New ideas lead to new ways of life, and the Church, which is the de facto State, cannot allow this change. It was too fast, it was too upsetting, it shook the very foundations of our society, which was built on this special status of human beings.



They saw a man of integrity before them, they felt his sincerity. The learned among them even understood his theories. And it was clearest perhaps for Galileo himself, why the truth must be told, that nature is simply nature, and we must be simply what we always have been. He exposed himself in such a blatant way, though he had been dropping hints to whoever might need to know, ever since he made his own realisation.



He knew that what is right must at some point be told. He fired the shot that literally made the earth start moving. He thought the truth would set him, and others like him, free. Instead, it launched him into a fiery pit of public condemnation, where those who were not qualified testified against him. Their only qualification was that they had spawned many theories. They had many progenies but how does knowing how to copulate the way dogs do make them suitable parents of the truth?



They had lost the plot, but they lost the plot because the world they lived in had lost the plot. Instead of truth, they replaced their knowledge with dogma. Instead of generosity and open-mindedness, they replaced their way of life with hatred and ignorance. Other societies have since changed and accepted how things are, allowing the followers of Galileo who lived good lives among them, to continue on their path, in their chosen way. Here, we are willing to crush our greatest souls, even after considering their vast contributions. Instead of admiring their bravery to live in truth, we criminalise them, and for what? For daring to think and live honestly? I am but just one example. No, I am not even worth the dirt on their shoes, I am but a warped example but well, it is my funeral and so I must want you to know, how the truth, this precious knowledge, had made me suffer.



On the surface, I seemed fine. You’d never be able to recognise it, if you looked at me and observed how I behaved. I was careful to never be the loud kind. I am no activist, seeking to fight for the truth. As you already know full well, I am a pragmatist. Today I use that word as an accusation. I accuse myself. Instead of truth, in the name of continuing my comfortable life, I masked my true identity. In the privacy of my rooms, in my head, in my heart, I am Galilean. But if you had asked me to my face, I’d have denied, denied, and denied. But enough of that. If I can’t even tell the truth after I am dead and of which the consequences can no longer haunt me, then how can I live with myself? [Nervous laughter from audience]



Pardon the gallows humour. I have ruined my life, hiding behind lies, not daring to confront my enemies who are the enemies of Galileo. Every day I had lived, I fought a battle with myself. I made an entire career, writing complete treatises, books and poems where I danced behind metaphors, hoping that the truth be understood by at least my most discerning readers. But then I act as my own enemy, layering my tales such that what I really wanted to shout out instead became buried, so that my true story remain undiscovered. Now I have taken it to my grave.



Now you know another fact about me that lies not in my confession but in my actions. I am a coward. I dared not live fully. I lived merely a half-existence, always afraid of being unmasked.



Now I put the full truth in front of you, a mite too late for me, but perhaps it is still not too late for the Galileans among you. So long as there is life, there is hope, says Cicero. My hope for those who I am trying to speak to in this eulogy, is that you learn from my tragedy, my betrayal and my cowardice, and resolve to be braver than me. You have heard that perhaps long list of achievements and accolades heaped upon me. Tomorrow, most will be withdrawn posthumously. But they are worth little, maybe even less than nothing, if they cannot withstand the force of truth.



Regrets, all I have are regrets. Learn from my lesson. Be better than me.



[Remarks for staged performance: There are no actual mourners on the stage. The audience is meant to take the role as mourners at the funeral.]

[1] Il Divo, a 2008 film directed by Paolo Sorrentino.