與棺材一起過日子

1

起居室里一個普通的家庭娛樂中心，或者靜靜地站在臥室角落的多層儲物柜，看起來再普通不過了。但如果有人告訴你那其實是一副棺材，你還會淡定自若嗎？其實那幾塊木板并非命中注定要做成某種特定家具，說到底，是我們自己心里有道過不去的坎兒。

We’re talking about reckoning with death， and people have different ways of doing that. In Waterville， Maine， Chuck Lakin builds coffins that double as pieces of furniture.

Chuck： So， kinda the coffin collection here. This is just the plain pine box. There’s the， the 1）toe pincher coffin. Actually I think the first coffin was sort of a 2）gimmick， I woke up in the middle of the night， the idea came to me for one： you can stand this coffin up with five shelves in it， it’s a display cabinet. You can put it on its side， and the first， third， and fifth shelves turn 90 degrees so you can use it as an entertainment center， and when you turn it on its back， the five shelves become the lid.

One of my friends has one of those in her living room and she just loves having new friends over for dinner， because at some 3）lull in the conversation during the evening she’ll drop in the fact that that’s her coffin over in the corner just to see what happens， and you know it always starts a conversation—after the initial shock of course. It’s a different topic that people don’t talk about， but they discover that they have something to say usually or they have something they need to say.

This is the bookcase coffin， back here you can see the handles 4）bolted on one side. There’s only a couple of people that…that I know who have one of my coffins that’s being used as a piece of furniture， and one of them’s right here in town who bought a coffin， one that you can store flat and assemble it just in a couple of minutes with， using just 5）wedges， but she had me put three shelves in it. She uses it as a quilt storage rack. She had it in her bedroom until her husband made her take it out of the bedroom because it was 6）creeping him out， but she gets a kick out of it.

One coffin I shipped to a woman in Iowa， she just mentioned that it was a birthday present to herself and so I had tried to time it so that it arrived the day before her birthday.

I think， if you’re unprepared and had been ignoring it， most death is a tragedy. It’s treated like a tragedy， when it’s a natural process. I know I’m there intellectually and I have no idea how I’ll…I will respond emotionally when the time actually comes， but I think I want to get to the point where I can treat my death as an adventure.

我們正在討論如何面對死亡。在這個問題上，不同的人有不同的方法。而在美國緬因州的沃特維爾，查克·萊金的做法是制作可作家具使用的棺材。

查克：好，這些差不多可以說是棺材大雜燴。這個是普通的松木棺材，那是一個寬肩窄腳的棺材。事實上，我覺得我做的第一個棺材可以說是一種噱頭。我半夜醒來，冒出一個想法：你可以把里面有五層架子的棺材豎起來，那它就成了一個展示櫥柜。你也可以將它側著放，把里面的第一、三、五層的架子旋轉90度，這樣你就可以把它當成家庭娛樂中心。如果你把它背朝天地平放在地上，里面的五個架子就變成了棺材蓋。

我有個朋友把這樣一副棺材放在她家的起居室里。她很喜歡邀請新朋友到家里吃晚飯，因為在晚上談話的間隙，她會提到起居室角落的柜子其實是她的棺材，然后看看大家會有什么反應。你也明白，這事兒肯定會引發一輪談話——當然，這是在經歷了一開始的震驚之后的事了。那是一個不同尋常且避之不及的話題，可人們會發現在這個問題上，自己通常有話可說，或者有話要說。

這是一個書架棺材，從后面這里你可以看到它的一邊上了把手。……