Tombstone.
Rounded =Hearts.
Pointy =Spades.
Flat= Diamonds.
Statue on Top=Clubs.
Now the colours are clear. The value of a card is supplied by the last digit of the time of death. Consequently, 1935 is a Five,. 1931 a one for an Ace. If there are more than two names to a tombstone, then its a Jack. Three names are a Queen, four or more a King.
The game can commence.
You play it like Texas Hold’em, just reverted. First, you lay out five normal poker cards openly and let the players give their stake. Then the players look for the two cards lying on their faces in the form of a tombstone on the cemetary. Players always .come in pairs, because only two partners can manage the following stunt: they can select random tombstones as their cards if, well, if they can find a live, full bridge between the two tombstones. So if two tombstones are supposed to play together, the hand of one partner can, for instance, be on the tombstone, the foot can have contact with the foot of the partner, who then has to touch the second tombstone at least with his fingertip.
Should anybody be allowed to play this sort of game? Aren’t we, again, dealing with a case of calculated taboo breaking? Is now even the dignity of a cemetary no longer a sacred thing?
Well, you could argue in favour of this opinion. But then, you could also argue totally differently. When I first read the report on Tombstone Hold’em, I was spontaneously reminded of how Steve Jobs treated the concept of death (see my post “Death as a Management Tool” – Der Tod als Management Tool), along with a comment that was ingrained in my brains like no other. Like with Jobs, it was about how someone knew he was suffering from cancer and therefore looked upon and appreciated life in a totally new way. The gist was that Carpe Diem should, in fact, read Carpe Mortem.
We keep death at a distance like children keep the world at a distance by putting their hands before their eyes. But our life is worthless without death. To be sure, philosophers such as Plato, Buddha and Epicur described it like this, but they never managed to reach the humans with their concept. It took the Americans with their famous pragmatic attitude. Instead of keeping death locked up in hard-core philosophical ideas, they opened it up to the game. Hundreds of persons played Tombstone Hold’em and thousands saw them doing it. The author of the game, McGonigal (the drawing is also by her) not only organized the game on cemetaries all over the world, but also questioned all the parties concerned afterwards. There was quite some criticism. Even hard criticism. But there was also something else: relief.
Well, death has no easy standing in life. We should therefore make it easier for him – for our own good.
SIX
(Translated by EG)
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