Impermanence

There is a scene from Neil Gaiman's Endless Nights (yes that is what my blog's name is based on) in the story Destruction on the Peninsula, where an archaeologist often have visions of a post apocalyptic hell in which everything is in ruins and every person on the street was dead and decomposing. For the past week since Robin's death I have often returned to the memory of his disturbingly "restored" corpse lying in the casket. I am no stranger to the topic of death but it's often like a revisit through an old photo album of the subject whenever someone close passes on. And then I imagine the body decomposing underneath the silent earth in its claustrophobic box. In the enclosed oxygen deprived environment it would probably mummify. In a few years, the casket will eventually give way to rot, finally allowing further decomposition to continue. In a decade or so, nothing left but bones. In a few hundred years, the gravestone would have weathered, perhaps rendering the identity of the grave occupant anonymous. A thousand years, nothing more than graying bones. All those who have lived with his memory had long since been lost - me included.

I stepped into the gym and after a grueling workout, I stood on the balcony surveying the floor. Overweight people huffing and puffing on the treadmills while the others half-heartedly heaving on the various exercise machines. Their personal trainers stood by, goading them on. Pretty people with their fine sinewy bodies effortlessly punishing their bodies to further perfection. Suddenly before my eyes, all of them became decayed corpses, dead, jaws slack and opened - worm food. As pretty as we are now, we will all come to the same destination eventually. Death waits at the crossroads with a patient smile. I echoed her smile.