Death?

Then the moment comes. Not any moment. It’s the moment. When time and breath and hope and thoughts stop. This instant captures you in the very present. The world remains a snapshot of your last second. You see only the greenery of the trees, or feel only the velvety breeze, or smell only the sweet odour of a loved one pressed near. Could one think that this is all, a final instant before blackness? Is this all that remains before memories are washed away with the ashes. How can your thoughts exist from nothing, and then return to nothing. Is the intermediary“life?” Is this grand spectacle of human creativity destined simply to remain ephemeral? How can a concoction brewed in the mind, giving life to passion, to desire, to lust, be bound by earthly means?

It seemed that a life force dwelled within the mundane. It lurked between corridors, it was passed between lovers, it sprouted from gardens, it sang from the birds. And if this were your last second, if you drew your very last breath as you read the words on this paper, what would imprint itself on your memory? Would it be fear, regret, shock, anger, resentment, doubt? Would it be a craving for just one for heartbeat? When you close your eyes for sleep eternal, what would etch itself into your eyelids? What glimpse of the temporal realm would you cherish before your blood coagulates within your veins. It was once rushing with fury. It pounded at your organs, it seeped through your veins, and it filled you with force, with exhilaration. And now? Now, like flowing water slows through a tap, someone has turned the knob and you find yourself swimming in a sea of darkness, where these moments roll over you, and crash onto you like waves.

Your name, your age, your family, your hopes, hurts, achievements mean nothing. You are a mass of matter seated or lying on some hard surface. Within hours you will become cold and stiff. You no longer can touch, reach, hug, caress, smile, cry, or laugh. You can be defined in a multitude of terms. You are simply atoms and water molecules and nitrogen and carbon and made of exactly the same material as the coke bottle littering your bedside table. You will blend in with the soil if you are buried, you will unite with the sea if you are cremated. Pain exists only in the physical realm. It is a reminder that one is tied to the earth, like a puppet is bound by strings. When the moment comes, the strings are cut. And like a puppeteer moves the puppet, once these strings are cut he jerks and stammers in his own direction. That is the moment before he hits the ground, for when he does there is nothing. This intermediary, this split second between one’s final breath and one’s complete demise, is a moment of sheer awakening. It is a fragment, a mere split second. And all should spend their lives preparing.