Loxahatchee is an isolated road that runs along the edge of The Everglades, somewhere in West Broward where you can always score designer drugs from bored-to-death yuppie, equine enthusiasts who tend to look to poisoning themselves with pills to avoid having to acknowledge their ever-growing suicide complexes more than a few times a day. It’s an empty, poorly-paved road. Dimly lit and fortuitously underpopulated by those types of people who are constantly praying to be gifted with an opportunity to shoot someone in cold blood without fear of legal repercussion[1].

It was where kids would go to see how fast they could drive without either killing themselves or blowing out their engine. It’s always empty, like I said, you don’t have to worry about getting pulled over or killing a pedestrian or whatever else prevents you from driving like a maniac in any normal situation. I can’t say if Loxahatchee Road serves any other purpose than this, I was never doing anything else on it myself.

I was with Prophet and George, my two writer friends. We were usually all very drunk when we got together. Prophet and George were usually very drunk when we got together, but I chose to be sober because I had to drive. We were out here in the middle of the swamp to drive around and do stupid things. It was Friday night, and there were a few parties going on, but you can only have so much diversity of activity at a house party. We turned to the swamp. We had spent the night smoking and drinking at the edge of the water, pointing out alligators in the water and talking about the books we were working on. I think we were driving home at this point, but I’m not sure. I don’t remember that part.

“George,” I leaned over to my friend in the passenger seat. Prophet was in the back, rolling a joint for the ride home. George looked at me and didn’t say anything.

“What do you get,” I said. “When you combine thousands of dollars of debt, perpetually-delayed suicide, unrealized ambitions, nihilism through adaptation, and a cellphone addiction?”

“I give,” George said to me.

“You get the average millennial,” I said.

“That joke was trash,” George said.

“Who said he was joking?” Prophet yelled from the backseat.

“Exactly!” I yelled at George, who was ready to pass out.

“Everyone in our generation is depressed,” Prophet said. “So depressed that they’ve become too lazy to even kill themselves.”

“Which is why we’re all addicted to our phones, dude,” I said to George. “We have to constantly avoid thinking about our actual lives.”

“You’re both fucked,” George said.

We laughed, then I saw my victim. It was a possum. He emerged from a patch of grass on the side of the road and walked right into the road. I had no time to even debate if I should run him over, or swerve out of the way and plunge the car into the canal next to us instead—I ran him over.

“Shit!” Prophet yelled. “What the fuck was that? I dropped the joint.”

George looked at me. He saw the possum too. I put the car in park, and we both stepped out and walked to look at the possum’s corpse.

“Hmm,” George said aloud. “You got him pretty good.”

Prophet stepped out of my car after finding the joint. He walked up to George and I, lit the joint, and then passed it to me.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is just what they do. They play dead.”

I looked at the possum. He was definitely dead. His body had practically been ripped open. Most of his organs were now laying a few inches away from him on the dirt road. Prophet had a smile on his face.

“Outstanding joke,” I grabbed the joint.

The three of us stood there and stared at the dead possum for a while. This is pretty normal behavior for us.

“It’s like,” I spoke up. “It’s like every single thing this possum has ever done in his life has led him to being baptized by my tires.”

“It was his destiny,” Prophet said. “He got hit by your car on the day that he was born.”

“Destiny is bullshit,” George said.

“Tell that to the possum,” Prophet said. “He’ll be waiting for you in the Void.”

“Fuck,” George sighed. “Should we bury it or something?”

“Who are we to decide that this possum should have to take part in our petty, human rituals?” Prophet asked us.

“Prophet is right,” I said. “There are no funerals in the World of Possums. I already killed the goddamned thing, I can’t just impose my culture onto it too.”

“Also, I don’t want to touch that critter’s corpse,” Prophet shook his head.

We stood and stared at the possum for a few more moments, and when we finished the joint, we got back into the car and drove off. The three of us were silent for a time. We had successfully turned a piece of roadkill into a somber and profound personification of the frailty of life. All of our nights were ruined.

“I guess it sucks that he was alone,” George said.

“Everything dies alone,” Prophet replied.

I’ve to decide if I agreed with Prophet yet or not.

“I think,” I said aloud. “What truly separates us from beasts is our fascination with death.”

“Fascination?” Prophet asked.

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “In anthropology, it’s agreed upon that permanent settlement and civilization began at the same time that ritual funerals began. For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors would just leave the body of a dead man to rot.”

“Well yeah,” Prophet said. “Taking all that sweet time to bury a dead body can’t be ideal. You’ll get eaten by saber-tooth tigers doing that.”

“Prey on the run,” George said. “No time to be human.”

“Exactly,” I raised a finger. “We were beasts up until the very moment that we decided death was important. The day we started honoring the dead, was the day that we became human.”

“I think it’s dumb,” Prophet laughed. “We’re so fascinated by the simple process by which we cease to be organic. Death is just a word for the process by which our bodies go from organic matter to just meat.”

“I fucking hate you guys,” George slumped back in the passenger seat.

“Meat!” Prophet leaned forward and started pinching George in the sides. “All you are is meat, George! Meat with a mind!”

We drove a little longer. There was no more weed, and none of us could remember what we were even doing out here anymore.

“I guess that’s all that separates us from that possum,” I broke the silence. “We make a big deal out of death, and they don’t seem to think about it much.”

“Elephants,” George said.

“What?” Prophet asked.

“Elephants have funerals,” George coughed. “Your argument is bullshit. Giving a fuck about death isn’t what makes us human. Elephants give a fuck too.”

“We exist, and then we don’t,” I said. “Something about that drives us crazy. That’s the key. That’s why we’re the only creatures who create art or form religions. The end of our existence is staring us down at all times, and it drives us crazy.”

“That’s why we’ve been talking about death for an hour,” Prophet said. “You killed that possum, and now you’re trying to imagine your own leap into the Void.”

“There’s the afterlife,” George shrugged.

“I’ve never really been one to believe in that,” I said.

“Me neither,” George said. “Me neither.”

I dropped George off at his house first, and then headed towards Prophet’s place. It was about five in the morning, and I wanted to get home and go to sleep before the sun came up and ruined my mood.

“I feel very nihilistic,” Prophet said.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“I think,” Prophet scratched his head. “There’s only two possibilities for our existence.”

“Which are?”

“Either nothing matters,” Prophet said. “Or everything matters; and it matters so much that we can’t even begin to comprehend the importance of it all.”

“Both of those are equally terrifying,” I replied.

We pulled up to Prophet’s house. Before he got out of the car, he turned to me.

“I guess the only thing we’re sure of is how fascinated we are about the thing that happens right before we see if our lives had any meaning or not.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “In the meantime, all we can do is be tormented by it. By death, I mean.”

“Are you afraid of death?” Prophet asked.

“Absolutely terrified,” I laughed. “Absolutely, fucking terrified. I wish I could ask someone what it meant.”

“I know someone who knows,” Prophet’s expression lit up.

“Who is that?”

“The possum,” Prophet laughed, and I laughed, and he got out of my car. I drove home.

George was right, Elephants have funerals. We aren’t the only inhabitants of Earth who place significance on death. In fact, there’s quite a bit of creatures, and many of us are interested in the stage in our lives where it all comes to an end. But if there was one thing I learned from that night, it’s that there’s one thing about death that truly makes humans unique: we’re the only ones who laugh at it.

[1] Cops, rednecks, any variation of inbred gun-fanatic. They’re everywhere in Florida.