"On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job"
"You tell God the Father it was a kindness you done. I know you hurtin' and worryin', I can feel it on you, but you oughta quit on it now. Because I want it over and done. I do. I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Tired of not ever having me a buddy to be with, or tell me where we's coming from or going to, or why. Mostly I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand"

This is a quote from The Green Mile, one of the better films I've seen recently. It mixes thoughtfulness with shock and sadness and happiness and horror so well and perfectly that it's hard to come away not feeling some strong things mashing around inside you. There's a bit of the weird and unexplained in there too which I wasn't sure about to start with but I think it makes the story work. John is not just a good man, he is a gifted man and it shouldn't end the way it does.

I think the film raises other issues too, issues that I've talked about in this blog. One is that John Coffey has resigned to his death, welcomes it even. How old is he? How much has he seen on this world; how much can he see?
"That's as good a word as any. He infected us both, didn't he, Mr. Jingles? With life. I'm a hundred and eight years old, Elaine. I was forty-four the year that John Coffey walked the Green Mile. You mustn't blame John. He couldn't have what happened to him... he was just a force of nature. Oh I've lived to see some amazing things Elly. Another century come to past, but I've... I've had to see my friends and loved ones die off through the years... Hal and Melinda... Brutus Howell... my wife... my boy. And you Elaine... you'll die too, and my curse is knowing that I'll be there to see it. It's my torment you see; it's my punishment, for letting John Coffey ride the lightning; for killing a miracle of God. You'll be gone like all the others. I'll have to stay. I'll die eventually, that I'm sure. I have no illusions of immortality, but I will await your death... long before death finds me. In truth, I wish for it already."
Paul says that for letting John die and not saving him, he is cursed with life beyond his years. He has to watch everyone die and know that he cannot die yet. I think this is a well thought out part of the film. What would be seen by many as a gift, is actually a curse. It would be all to easy to make him immortal, but then he wouldn't age. To have your life slowed down, that is far worse I think. Death is coming, just a little bit slower than before. Humans live as long as they do because by the end of your life you're about ready to die. Much longer than that and it's too long. That's just me though. I could be wrong about that. I think 80 years is a very long time. I've lived a nearly quarter of that already and in 50 or 60 years time I think I'll have had enough. Probably even before that.
Sometimes I sit in the shower and just let the hot water crash down around me. Sometimes when I do this I'll try to imagine that I'm not sitting in the bath with the shower over me, that I'm in fact sitting in a bath in a rain forest with hot rain falling all around me. Sometimes I manage to imagine this so well that I almost actually believe that I'm going to see a rain forest when I open my eyes. What if you could actually believe that it was going to be a rain forest? Would you experience the rain forest when you open your eyes? Is the only thing tying you to reality the expectation that it's still going to be there when you open your eyes?

Many philosophers believe that there is nothing to make us believe that the world around us is real. If this is true then maybe the only thing connecting us to reality is ourselves? We can take drugs to partly (or mostly) sever the tie with reality so why can't we do this with our own minds? Maybe it takes a massive amount of will power. You've spent your whole life relying on the fact that reality is still going to be there when you open your eyes. Telling yourself that something different is going to be there is going to be pretty hard.

So Long, So Love.