death

Flooded highways in Louisiana

Into the Flood

By Philipp Meyer | September 2, 2005

An EMT drives from Texas to Louisiana to do what he can.

"If Buddha had played a trick like that on me, I would've torn his goddamn head off."

White Ashes

By Jeff Wilson | May 25, 2005

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but the loss of a loved one will haunt you forever.

The Ten Plagues, detail

Exodus

By Francine Prose | April 22, 2005

A Passover reading from Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible.

Pope John Paul II

The Last Papal Picture Show

By Peter Manseau | April 1, 2005

The life, death, and ever-changing image of an icon.

"Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the land of Moab," William Blake, 1795 (Detail)

The Book of Ruth

By lê thi diem thúy | March 3, 2004

An excerpt from Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible‘s “Book of Ruth.”

The Great Crowd

Who Wants to Live Forever?

By John D. Spalding | January 1, 2004

There’ll be pie in the sky when you die — but what if there’s not enough to go around?

"It's Easter-time. They sell these at the drugstore."

Easter at the Jewish Ritual Bath, 1962

By Ilana Stanger-Ross | April 16, 2003

A tale of love, loss and submersion.

"The idea is to get the other side to quit by not firing a shot..."

Dear Doctor Ullman

By KtBniks | March 27, 2003

An email exchange with Harlan Ullman uncovers the doubts of a defense intellectual.

"He could no longer be certain whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man."

Persistence of Memory

By Jeff Wilson | February 13, 2003

Can we mourn for those who aren’t dead?

Mesquite

Entrance Wound

By Charles Bowden | August 1, 2002

We believe in cells and protoplasm and sex, and stench and dirt and slime
and screams in the night.

kimmel

Amos Awake

By Haven Kimmel | July 3, 2002

Reading the book he’ll never write.

Hands

Anointing the Sick

By Al Masarik | June 24, 2002

An altar boy grows up just in time to watch his mother die.

He's much taller in person.

In Pop We Trust

By Patton Dodd | December 21, 2001

Has Tom Cruise abandoned Scientology for Bob Dylan?

"War birds of the Irish, come to remind us they are hungry for eyes."

A Mantra for the Mujahedeen

By Maureen Hurley | November 20, 2001

How do you pray for an enemy?

limbo

Limbo

By V.A. MacAlister | October 22, 2001

In God’s waiting room with a nation of unbaptized babies.

Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Still Seeing the Rebbe

By Samuel Heilman | September 5, 2001

Pilgrims at the Lubavitcher Grand Rabbi’s grave in Queens.

The author and his mother, 1975

The Many Times My Mother Died

By Jeff Sharlet | August 6, 2001

If the body is a temple, what happens to faith when it’s destroyed?

zen_mind

Zen Mind, Alkie Mind

By Martha G. | February 9, 2001

Lust, Liquor, and Bill W.’s Elegant American Buddhism.