008 A Reading of N. K. Jemisin

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Transcript (Quoting Jemisin):

Eventually, I considered it the topic of death.

I could kill myself now, probably. This was not normally an easy thing for any god to do, as we are remarkably resilient beings. Even willing ourselves into nonexistence did not work for long; eventually, we would forget that we were supposed to be dead and start thinking again. Yeine could kill me, but I would never ask it of her. Some of my siblings, and Naha, could and would do it, because they understood that sometimes life is too much to bear. But I did not need them anymore. The past two nights’ events had verified what I’d already suspected: those things that had once merely weakened me before could kill me now. So if I could steel myself to the pain of it, I could die whenever I wished simply by continuing to contemplate antithetical thoughts until I became an old man, and then a corpse.

And perhaps it was even simpler than that. I needed to eat and drink and piss waste now. That meant I could starve,and thirst, and that my intestines and other organs were actually necessary. If I damaged them, they might not grow back.

What would be the most exciting way to commit suicide?

Because I did not want to die an old man. Kahl had gotten that much right. If I had to die, I would die as myself–as Sieh, the Trickster, if not the child. I had blazed bright in my life. What was wrong with blazing in death too?

Before I reached middle age, I decided. Surely I could think of something interesting by then.

–N. K. Jemisin. The Kingdom of Gods, Book 3: The Inheritance Trilogy (2014, p. 1036). Orbit/Hachette Book Group: New York.