Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

19. STILL FLYING AROUND:

When the kamikaze pilot gave it up he took his hands from the controls and just let the plane go wherever it wanted, but I grabbed his hands and forced them back on the controls - (for I wanted that controlled crash I'd paid for) - and he took them off again and I put them on again, and he took them off again - and then he started singing 'O Solo Mio' but it came out as 'O Soro Mio' and I certainly had no clue by that what he was saying - so I point-blank asked him 'what's going on?' and he turned to the others (second-mate and clockmaster and gunner's captain) and said "I've decided I do not want to die and so I have decided to let fate take the controls - do any of you see that?" And then they - sitting down again quite seriously - began asking each other 'what IS the difference?' (they each wondered) between selecting DEATH and letting FATE take you there - for as they surmised in the context of an airplane flight there's really no difference if you run it down as a kamikaze action or instead just let it crash of its own accord - in both cases the crashing is sure to bring a perfect death (or imperfect by whichever standards one beholds the situation). So, as we went along things were getting less and less ordered and controlled. The captain turned to the mate and said "is THIS the way you thought it would end? Is THIS what you bargained for?" and the mate said "surely not master Bob for I thought it would be a lot simpler than this." And with that I saw them clasp each other and jump - together - out the bay in the base of the plane and, unfettered and chuteless, simply drop into their own great beyond. They were never heard from again, though we others are STILL flying around. Oh, by the way, I guess the morale of such a tale is - you make your choice, you live with it.