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Young Writers Society


16+ Mature Content

let dead men lie

by arachno


Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for mature content.

                We often seek for the past of the dead and in doing so can discover many things. Here is an example of what I mean. Let's say that a man comes to town from somewhere no one knows. In one day this man changed the entire town. He made it better by helping the people, helping kids, saving people, fixing disasters, and literally putting his life on the line. After a year of being the mysterious stranger that made the town a better place, he began to get sick. He dies within a week from cancer and was held at a high honor, but we can't just let him lie we have to go and look for his past. The townspeople go searching for anything they could find on him. 5 years of searching and finally someone found the man’s history. They found out he was a serial killer that strangled women to death and raped little boys while making their parents watch.

With the information they found they were able to completely diminish the good, honorable man he was when he died. Instead of keeping it to themselves they spread it and now people want more answers about the horrifying serial killer. The man only wanted to do some good before he kicked the bucket which he already knew was coming so he wanted to die a good man knowing that he faced hell later

People want to discover all these secrets of those who die no matter the age, gender, orientation, etc.; and they forget they are dead, and are at rest.

So, I say let dead mean lie


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Mon Oct 01, 2018 7:26 pm
niteowl wrote a review...



Hi there arachno and welcome to YWS!

Based on the title/description, I was honestly expecting a different work. That's probably because I have a friend who works in physical anthropology, and there's a lot of controversy in that field over repatriation/reburial of native skeletons versus studying them. Of course, that's referring to people long dead, not recently dead like this story, so the arguments are slightly different.

Overall, I agree that this work has an interesting perspective, especially in this world where long-dead secrets can come to life. DNA testing raises serious privacy concerns, like the example of the Golden State Killer who was arrested this year because a relative put their DNA in a database and a woman who submitted her DNA and found out her biological father was actually the fertility doctor who gave her parents IVF. I know one of my mom's friend's relatives had a whole secret family that no one knew about (though I can't remember how or when that came to light).

I disagree with the thesis that we should let these secrets lie, however. The people in the examples above absolutely deserve to be accountable for their actions in life. Their victims and/or their loved ones deserve justice. Perhaps my thoughts on this are influenced by the fact that I am agnostic, so I don't know if there will be a hell for these awful people. But even if there is, I'd think a truly honorable person would turn themselves in if they wanted forgiveness. Think of the recent example of Bill Cosby-does his philanthropy and other good deeds outweigh the fact that he is now convicted of one rape and accused of many many more?

Plus, I don't know how realistic this scenario even is. I'd think as soon as it was clear that he was terminally ill, someone would try to reach out to his family. Even if I were to stumble across a body today, I'd hope that the police would work to identify those remains and notify the families. With the advent of social media and the aforementioned DNA databases, this person would probably be found and his past uncovered much more quickly.

Where I think the argument of judging the dead gets interesting is in more ambiguous scenarios. For example, my Yia-Yia (Greek for grandma) passed away from cancer a few years ago. She was highly regarded and certainly did a lot of good in life. She babysat for so many families in later years that over a dozen other families also called her Yia-Yia. But...she was also pretty racist. That's not uncommon among older people--my friend's grandma and my uncle who's around 80 also come to mind. My own parents, who are in their 60's, also have some pretty backwards attitudes. So how do we reconcile those sorts of beliefs in those who were generally good people? That, to me, is a much more interesting question than this sort of scenario.

Overall, this is an interesting and thought-provoking work, but I wonder if there's way to make the argument more realistic. Keep writing and welcome again! :D




arachno says...


thank you for the congrats and the review. i will keep it in mind



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Mon Oct 01, 2018 5:37 pm
Tenyo wrote a review...



Hey Arachno! Welcome to YWS!

This is a really interesting concept to explore. My opinion differs to the one portrayed here, but I think that's what I like about this. The anecdote explains quite clearly where the thought comes from and in a very powerful way.

I think it could do with a bit more structure. A separation of paragraphs with an introduction would be really nice just to lay out the concept a bit more before going into the anecdote. Maybe then split it into parts; his arrival, his death, and the information found afterwards.

Congrats on posting your first piece! Hopefully we'll see more of your work =]




arachno says...


thankyou very much i will make sure to consider that next time



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Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:45 am
Storybraniac says...



Woah. Das amazing.




User avatar
66 Reviews


Points: 94
Reviews: 66

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Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:45 am
Storybraniac says...



Woah. Das amazing.





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