A stupid phrase, but ...

The Complete and Total Loser only uses the phrase What the fuck? in jest. Not when he read the following, though, in the New York Times:

DÜSSELDORF, Germany — The co-pilot of the Germanwings jetliner that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday had been treated for “suicidal tendencies” before receiving his pilot’s license, the office of the German prosecutor in Düsseldorf said Monday.

The co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had been treated by psychotherapists “over a long period of time,” the prosecutor’s office said, without providing precise dates. In follow-up visits to doctors since that time, the prosecutor said, “no signs of suicidal tendencies or outward aggression were documented.”

Mr. Lubitz’s medical records show no physical illnesses, the prosecutor said.

Mr. Lubitz, 27, was at the controls of a Germanwings Airbus A320 jetliner on Tuesday, en route from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany, when he set it on a course to crash into the mountains in southeastern France, a French prosecutor has said. Cockpit voice recordings document that Mr. Lubitz was alone in the cockpit and refused to allow the captain to re-enter as the plane crashed, killing all 150 people on board.

The Loser is a liberal type, all for giving people second and third chances, trusting them, etc. But not an airline pilot. Also, not a surgeon, military official, law enforcement officer, or operator of any large passenger vehicle. 

The Loser, Christmas, 2010

The Complete and Total Loser’s parents are dying. He doesn’t say that, no one does, but it’s true. His mother has been in declining health for what, a decade now? At least. And she’s gotten substantially worse in the past year, going from frail to feeble. Always the type to require center stage, she lets all around her know this. No stoicism for her! She grunts as if in pain with each step, every movement. Minor procedures are detailed at length and someone must attend if she’s at a hospital even for an outpatient appointment.

The Loser gets peevish with this sometimes but overall is fine with it and does his duty. She is getting ready to commit the ultimate verb. If she needs to be attended by one of her sons, the Loser will comply. When he enters the house he drinks a beer as soon as he can. Then, often, another. He wants to take the edge off and there’s little but edge these days.

More disturbing to the Loser these days is his father, who is in better health than his mother but, a decade older than she is ninety now and hardly robust. A suburbanite since 1950, driving more than a few miles tires him now. Recently he has showed strong signs of clinical depression and his appetite has waned. He barely eats. He, a man whose greatest sin has been gluttony, who has disgusted his son for years by moaning with pleasure (“Umm ... Umm.”) when eating salty, greasy food with his fingers.

He, a man always preternaturally cheerful and optimistic, famous for being easygoing and likable, affable even, he himself calls it depression. The Loser sees the mild thrill his father gets from his lack of appetite, such a difference from the norm. His father doesn’t show his enjoyment openly, of course, and attributes it rightly to his worry over his ailing wife.

In an early, half awake morning hour today, maybe it was yesterday, another reason occurred to the Loser. His parents are playing an end game. Not a game in the sense of a competition. More of a matching game, like kids trying to see how many times they can throw a Frisbee back and forth without letting it hit the ground. The Loser’s father senses his wife’s coming death and is trying to go at the same time. Suicide by failure to thrive. The notion scares the Loser, but seems apt. (How many times has he had the romantic notion of them dying together, tragically, in a plane crash, asleep, on the way home after a delightful vacation?) It’s a selfish idea, the Loser knows. The abrupt end, no lingering death for either, no obligation to figure out the proper etiquette as they decline, no craziness from them. Just sympathy from others. Casseroles from neighbors while he lived in the house for a few months, settling things.

The Loser wants his father to be happy and is surprised how upset he is by his current state. He’d always thought that an overall happy existence would cancel out any brief time of misery at the end as much as it would had it been in midlife or another time. Now, he’s not so sure of this. His mother has always been like the Loser; a bit of a downer, never fully secure and joyous, with happiness a temporary, aberrational state. His father, though, that sweet, smart, kind man, he wants his father to die happy.

The Continental Airlines Crash

Oh, those poor people. The Complete and Total Loser has coping mechanisms when it comes to times when death comes in bulk. But they fail.
He tries to think the people on the plane aren't like him. They are simple, dimwitted, reacting to stimuli like amoebae, retreating from what hurts, enveloping what nourishes. When speaking of meaning life has beyond basic needs and shallow wants, it's a mouthing of platitudes heard on television or read in best-selling books.

Family members react to sad news.

In fact, at least some of the passengers—maybe all of them—were no doubt at least as mindful and appreciative of life as the Loser, probably more so, living lives with passion and meaning he can only glimpse, with lovers, friends and family deeply involved in their lives.
And the man on the ground. Not that a short commuter plane ride is a dangerous venture with death a likely outcome, but to be in your home, miles from an airport, living your life, and then this, is even worse, though far quicker, the plane a missile hitting too fast to comprehend.