What Makes A Person?
“What makes a person?”
“A person could be their quirks. They could be their intricacies and finer details. The very things that collude to make a personality. They could be all that they love and all that they hate. A person could be their love of taxidermy, or their hatred of fellow man. They could be the thoughts and feelings inside their minds and hearts. Is that what makes a person?”
“Perhaps a person is the physical form. Are they well defined and muscular, or overweight? Do they take care of their bodies, or use them as a mere vessel to carry out the day to day. Perhaps a person is how they look, not how they feel. Perhaps, just perhaps, the man or woman stood before you physically, is all that they truly are. Is that what makes a person?”
“A person could be the memory you have of them, couldn’t it? The way they behaved, the way they carried themselves. A person could be their moral fabric and integrity, or their lack thereof. Perhaps a person is nothing but a memory in the eye of the beholder. Is that what makes a person?”
“We don’t know what makes a person, do we Gustav?”
“Because a person is just an object that we stuff. They aren’t their intricacies, passions, desires, or whims. They aren’t a physical form of any interest or intrigue. We care not for how they treat their bodies, or what they look like. A person isn’t the memory you have of them, because you create a whole new one when you immortalize and vandalize their bodies in your new creation of them.”
“Some people in the know would say a person is everything they are.”
“They’re the soul, the heart and the mind. They’re the physical and the unseen. A person is a sum of all parts – whether you can see them or not.”
“But I know that’s of no interest to you, Gustav.”
“And in truth, it’s of no interest to me when it comes, either.”
“I don’t care that you’re a man, or a sum of parts that create a person. I have no interest or intrigue in what you are or why you are what you’ve become. I won’t even feign to understand the psychology behind wanting to take the carcass of a person and turn them into some sort of object. Just like you have no interest in what makes me, me, either.”
“It isn’t my job to understand a person.”
“That’s not what I’m paid to do.”
“I’m paid to clean up, Gustav.”
“And when I arrive on the scene, I take the body and I stuff it, just like you do.”
“Except I stuff it into a body bag.”
“So, what makes a person?”
“In your case, it’s body bag filler.”
“That’s what makes a person next week on Deathrow.“
