I used to think that World War 3 would hurt like a bitch. This did not just apply to those outside the blast radius, where fallout would make them sprout tumors the size of cantaloupes. Those at or around ground zero would also experience agony, though only for the briefest of moments as they were vaporized.

Thanks to Stockton Rush via Becca, I know better now. She has been researching him, the Titan submersible, and the fun things that happen during an implosion at a depth of two miles. This was not for any project. It is just when a topic interests her, she runs with it and is willing to do a deep dive, which is quite fitting here when you think about it.

I envy her that. I usually limit my research to a Wikipedia page, and maybe click on the IMDB link if there is one listed. As a result, I know a thing or two about a wide range of topics, but little beyond that.

Fortunately, Becca filled me in on some of the juicier details about Stockton Rush and his death sub. She told me about the near disasters before the big one, the whistleblower who got dicked over by OSHA, and Rush himself. Not surprisingly, he was a narcissist with a fragile ego and more money than sense. He did not like to play by the rules, which can be admirable unless the rules include the laws of physics.

Spoiler alert: Stockton Rush died along with four other poor bastards when the Titan submersible imploded like human potential. What surprised me was how fast. The five got turned into bits of meat paste before they noticed that anything had gone wrong.

I had no idea that signals may not reach the brain, even though I should have. I was reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test forty years ago and there was this bit about how Neal Cassady got the nickname “Speed Limit.” He was fond of stimulants and had a very fast reaction time. When tested, it took him one-thirtieth of a second. Tom Wolfe’s take away on this was that we all live a tiny little bit in the past, even Neal Cassady, who was closer to being in the moment than most.

It is easier to accept that there is lag time to existence when you think you will get to all your life’s moments eventually. Except for the very last one and you can get to that in the afterlife. But what if there is no afterlife? For a confident, smug answer to this question, I turned to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The way he sees it, your consciousness after you die is the same as it was before you were born. Though that sounds reasonable, I think it relies too heavily on the Never-Never Land of the past. Maybe all the stuff in the history books is bullshit and the world began with me.

To sidestep the issue, I turn to my colonoscopy seven years ago. I was mercifully put under for the duration of the procedure. For about twenty minutes, I had no conscious existence and yet my vital signs were monitored the whole time. I was here even though I wasn’t. My soul evidently has a kill switch.

I wonder what Stockton Rush’s take on this would be. On the one hand, I could see him being an atheist, the real arrogant kind who wore his godlessness like a codpiece. Of course, that would rob him of his unimportance once his time on Earth was over. He didn’t seem the type to be OK with that.

Instead, I bet he hoped that the rules of death did not apply to him. He would be like Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait, telling Buck Henry and James Mason he had no intention of boarding that SST to the hereafter. They would have to cut a deal with him for another life. Either that or swap the plane for a submersible and tell him it’s perfectly safe.