Death. The departure from life. A permanent end to everything one has ever committed oneself to. An inevitable state of being that can come in countless different ways. Intentionally or accidently done by the killer or killed. Human to human, animal to animal. Human to animal and vice versa. It can come slowly, or quickly, at any age or time. Some consider it evil. Others consider it beautiful. It's a debatable beginning or end.

It is a natural process. The physical body can only sustain life for so long. Eventually, it has to give up on itself, or surrender to an outside force. Some people believe it's God's way of sending a soul to an eternal life or damnation. Others think their souls linger on earth, or that they have no souls, or any number of things. And yes, there are still others who have no idea what I'm talking about. But what if everyone were wrong? What if the most technologically advanced, yet most ignorant form of existance ran the show? Yes, what if humans decided who died, and how, and when, and why, and used the deceased souls for something else? What if, for instance, a certain job run by certain people was thought to be one certain thing, but most certainly wasn't? It'd be a complete misconception to anyone and everyone except the persons who headed the corporation or who worked within it. And what if the leaders of that corporation gave incorrect information to the entire public, the people and the government, and swore every employee to secrecy of everything that happened within all of the corporation's operations? And failure to keep one's mouth shut resulted, of course, in death?

Or what if the head of the business had the ability to put an end to the wrong-doer's existance before he or she committed the crime? What if that was truly what death was?

Say there was a hypothetical business (dubbed "Utensils, Inc.") that specialised in the creation and production of, perhaps, kitchen utensils. You know, the inanimate, ever-practical spoons, forks, knives, spatulas, etc. They don't mind being drowned in soapy water, or shovelling food into people's mouths, or being thrust into a pot full of excruciatingly hot water. Why? Because they have no life. They never have, and never will. Sure, they were perhaps made from something that was once living, say, a tree (obviously, for wood), but the object itself was never alive.

But what if that was what Utensils, Inc., told us to lead our suspicions elsewhere? What if the wooden handle of a spatula was not in fact made from the now-dead tree? What if it was merely a subtance very much like wood, but really wasn't? What if spoons and forks and knives and spatulas were all once living creatures found in only the places where corporations selected as their factories? The leaders of the business would collect the species, of say, spatulas, or hire other people to do it for them, and then find a way or ways to kill them. The "wooden" handle may have been some function of the spatula's anatomy, composed of a material softer than the "metal" spatula. Or maybe instead of each tool (spoon, knife, what have you) being a creature's full body, is a piece of a creature's full body, or a fragment of a piece of a creature's full body.

For this corporation to be successful, they, the leaders, must hire people to work for them, and also convince the hired help to shut up. The majority of the public would indeed be quite miffed to learn that the items they use daily with no care toward their existance were actually once living creatures killed for human consumption. So, to convince the employees to shut up, they use a pretty successful method: you tell, you die. But this is too risky. Even if the convicted persons were put to death, whomever they told now holds valuable information. So the leaders decide to find a way to identify someone's intended actions before they are actually carried out. They manage to do this somehow. So, if a person was to apply for a job at Utensils Inc., they'd be subject to swear themselves openly oblivious to every procedure performed under the corporation. The person does this, and after several years of killing innocent creatures for the benefit of gaumless humans, decides they don't like it any more. They leave the business and try to help the poor fauna by telling someone what's going on behind corporation walls. Before they do this, the corporation's OMG-He's-Gonna-Rat-O-Meters go off, and he gets into a car accident on his way home from work after he quits his position, and dies.

Perhaps every corporation does something like that. Perhaps everyone is ruled by another person in some form or fashion, and each ruled person is sworn to some kind of secrecy. They won't be capable of death until they are sworn, and only die when they decide to spill the beans, or the ruler of the body decides they don't like them any more. Maybe that's all that death is. But then... what is birth?