In Dell, Montana, where the gas station features taxidermy and camouflage
And the Boston terrier Buster guards the door,
A pickup truck with a bed of dead cow, bred for slaughter,
That ended up roadkill, pulled up to a lonely pump for fuel.
Two cows had been cut up and crammed into the back,
And of course they were both already torn up some beforehand,
So that the bed of the truck was a level-filled mattress
Of bright red meat, torn black patches of hide, and the odd hoof.
Pascal, who once figured life as a courtyard full of condemned men
Awaiting random execution, should have known better than to parse
His wager the way he did. The more honest configuration goes like this:
If all the evidence of the world is correct, then death ends our existence,
No more talking, doing, feeling, or self-reflecting. In that case,
A bet on death yields nothing and a nothing from which nothing
Can be taken away. If, on the other hand, the evidence of the world misleads
Us, we have no way of knowing in what way we have been misled
Until we test our death. So those are the possible outcomes for any bet
On death: nothingness or the wholly unknown. It's not a wager to win
Or lose. It's a wager on a discovery that's impossible to live. Bet?
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