In the year 4005, my funeral will have been over long ago. My sister's funeral, the same. Our bodies will probably be considerably disintegrated, dusty chunks lining a what is left of an underground casket. The wishes our loved ones sent to us, wishes to "rest at peace", may be too old to hold water anymore. Is it still seen as resting anymore, after nearly one thousand years? Or is it something more stagnant and finite? I look at graves only one hundred years old and think of something more ephemeral than a body at peace, without conscious being. What wish does one give to the contents of a ragged, thousand-year-old wanna-be casket? Perhaps one only thinks that our archaic clothes looked silly or asks themselves how we could stand to travel so slowly.
In less than twelve hours, I will be looking into a casket and upon the body of a loved one. These thoughts will enter my head. In the year 4005, this casket will not matter. There are worse things, I suppose. Like, this casket not mattering now. Thankfully, this is not the case. I will be looking into a casket, into the face of a beloved relative, and I will take a moment to study his face, hair, and overall demeanor. And then, I will look any signs that the mortician has been there (there will likely be none, I've yet to really find a good one at a funeral). I will continue to look, with tears in my eyes, and wonder how many cotton balls they used to stuff him. I know they put them in their mouths to retain the shape, since their teeth are taken out. I imagine they do the same to the eyes, though I do not know. Though, I know they glue the eyes and I look for the glue. I know that they cut the stomach like a three slice pizza and peel it back to retrieve the organs, then seal it shut again. wonder how much they weigh after being prepared compared to how much they weighed when they were alive or dying. I would like to talk with someone as they prepare the dead. I wonder how it changes their view on humanity and the people in their life. I would like to ask if they would be honored to, say, prepare their mother when she dies, or if that matters more on her attitude in life.
In less than twelve hours, I will have walked past a coffee pot at least once. I will wonder why coffee and tea are considered appropriate for a funeral, but why food is not. I want there to be food at my funeral. And alcohol. And music. I want the cotton balls in my body to vibrate from the music, footsteps, laughter, and tears. I want the cotton balls to ever so slightly soak up the smell of the food my family got to eat at my funeral, not just coffee and their perfume and flowers (and the inside of my dead mouth). Of course, these things will not matter to me anymore, by this time, so I guess coffee and tea will not be so bad.
In the year 4005, I wonder if there will still be cotton balls...
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
The Fog
"You are in the fog and it is just starting to clear...In the fog, you think you know where you're going because you haven't fallen yet. But, you do not. You can barely see the ten feet in front of your face. You're alone in the fog, and cannot possibly know where you are yet...
...Ten years from now, you'll be surprised where life takes you. I know I was. Everyone I know was. The fog is part of life. If I could go back in time with the mind I have know, knowing what I now know, but had the physical capabilities and body I had then, I would be a god. When I was 22, I was a beast. I could have flown if I wanted to. But, I didn't figure life out until I went through most of it. This is life."
One year before realizing that the residents of the 4005 version of my world and I would be total strangers, Dr. Xavier had given me his first speech on life. "You're in your early twenties. You are in 'the fog' and it is just starting to clear. You think you know what you're doing, but you do not. This is not a crime, it is just the way things are. One day you will look back and realize how much of a fog you were in, and how much clearer the world is now."
And the fog is indeed where I find myself. Arms waving in front of me blindly, seeking a path that my eyes, blinking much too quickly, cannot find. I've done this for quite some time, as soon as I felt the urge to find my way through the fog, instead of sitting on the ground and playing with a toy, pissing in my diaper, hearing the babble of my parents that I did not yet realize I could understand if I listened to it for long enough. On my way through the fog, I've found mostly bad things which I picked off the ground: cigarettes, bad boyfriends, clothes that didn't fit, anxiety. I've found great things, too: the golden threads which hold my family together, love, pets, good books, bad books, college, and fire. Of the things I've plucked from the pavement and stuck in my pocket, I find (as most humans do) that my favorites are books, pets, and love.
Books have given me rest throughout my travels in the the fog, a fortress against the cold, a friend on long plane rides to see how the fog has descended upon other countries, among other things.
Pets have been my greatest allies through the fog, walking with me as it slowly clears, giving me companionship and ultimate trust. Pets are the hardest to lose, as they are not simply lost or loaned away like books so often are. They either walk with you until they take their final step and drop into the dust or you make the decision to end their journeys a little early, to save them the pain of suffering with you in their old age. These graves are some of the most painful to look upon.
Love has shown me the golden threats which weave my family together - a stitch I did not see for so long. It has given me the friends I depend upon in my foggy stumble, and lovers to engage in battle or merely dance with.
...Ten years from now, you'll be surprised where life takes you. I know I was. Everyone I know was. The fog is part of life. If I could go back in time with the mind I have know, knowing what I now know, but had the physical capabilities and body I had then, I would be a god. When I was 22, I was a beast. I could have flown if I wanted to. But, I didn't figure life out until I went through most of it. This is life."
One year before realizing that the residents of the 4005 version of my world and I would be total strangers, Dr. Xavier had given me his first speech on life. "You're in your early twenties. You are in 'the fog' and it is just starting to clear. You think you know what you're doing, but you do not. This is not a crime, it is just the way things are. One day you will look back and realize how much of a fog you were in, and how much clearer the world is now."
And the fog is indeed where I find myself. Arms waving in front of me blindly, seeking a path that my eyes, blinking much too quickly, cannot find. I've done this for quite some time, as soon as I felt the urge to find my way through the fog, instead of sitting on the ground and playing with a toy, pissing in my diaper, hearing the babble of my parents that I did not yet realize I could understand if I listened to it for long enough. On my way through the fog, I've found mostly bad things which I picked off the ground: cigarettes, bad boyfriends, clothes that didn't fit, anxiety. I've found great things, too: the golden threads which hold my family together, love, pets, good books, bad books, college, and fire. Of the things I've plucked from the pavement and stuck in my pocket, I find (as most humans do) that my favorites are books, pets, and love.
Books have given me rest throughout my travels in the the fog, a fortress against the cold, a friend on long plane rides to see how the fog has descended upon other countries, among other things.
Pets have been my greatest allies through the fog, walking with me as it slowly clears, giving me companionship and ultimate trust. Pets are the hardest to lose, as they are not simply lost or loaned away like books so often are. They either walk with you until they take their final step and drop into the dust or you make the decision to end their journeys a little early, to save them the pain of suffering with you in their old age. These graves are some of the most painful to look upon.
Love has shown me the golden threats which weave my family together - a stitch I did not see for so long. It has given me the friends I depend upon in my foggy stumble, and lovers to engage in battle or merely dance with.
Friday, November 30, 2012
In The Future, We Will Be Dead
"It is the year 4005. We will be dead, our research published. Our lives, careers, and dreams will be done. No one will look back and say, 'Ahhh, damn. Zahra Grimshaw failed her chemistry test and had a weak sixty page ecology paper. I can't believe that!' It's not going to define your whole life. You need to just take one minute to breathe."
These are the words of my advisor and professor, Dr. Xavier, coming from the lips of my lab partner, Pennie. These words had an instant calming effect on my fit. I am not the type of person who can be easily disturbed, be it by a scary movie, an awkward situation, or many of life's stressful burdens. But on this November day, at 2:40 AM, I was Atlas, crumbling under the weight of a world to heavy to carry anymore. I was stuck in a rut again and seasonal depression had been crawling away from the summer sun and had been heading in my direction since spring had cast it off. The slimy, cracked, aching hands of depression grabbed for fresh soil, pulling its naked, gray, crippled body behind it and it made its way to bum fuck Egypt's academic headquarters, the middle-of-nowhere Metropolis - it had made its way through the small, weird, and removed town in which I lived.
There is still a set of invisible scratches in my front door, where it clawed and pawed at the door, which I would not open, until it popped it from its frame. The crippled and diseased creature pulled itself across my floor, closing the gap between it and me, and evidence of the battle which ensued still lurk around my gloomy basement apartment: used dishes from many meals ago on the table (certainly to discourage the creature from getting any closer), dirty clothes tossed carelessly around the house (assuredly thrown at the creature, in self defense), and pillows and blankets curled in a ball on the couch (surely the only spot in the house which the creature cannot reach) where I have been sleeping/vegetating for two weeks. There are also multiple piles of paperwork (which I hide behind to confuse the creature) and Chubbers, the cat (a valiant feline companion, who has braved the weather and war and fought beside me in every wintry battle. His only complaint is when dinner is late, and it is, in every respect, polite).
If the words of my professor are correct, this crippled, draining creature will die with me and the story of our great war will likely not reach the ears of the citizens who reside in the year 4005. Given the off chance that these citizens do hear about my great war, it will seem at best to be the smallest pinching battle of all time. They will not care if the creature and I died as equals in battle or if peace was made between the two of us. Perhaps victory will be mine to claim? Or, on a particularly dark and weak day of the future, perhaps my small gloomy basement apartment fortress will have been taken over by the creature and I will be left waving the saddest white flag my family has ever seen.
It is the year 4005. We will be dead, our research published.Our lives, careers, and dreams will be done. No one will see the drag marks, made by our inner demons, circling the house like vultures. No one will see the pieces of earth, stuck in the corner, which you overlooked while trying to clean up the mess you made when you let that heavy planet roll off your shoulders and crash to the bottom of the universe. No one will care about the tiny things, either - the bad grade on a test, that day you hair stood straight up, the day you cried in front of someone, the dinner that was ruined because you somehow burnt soup, the day you looked too fat in those jeans, the day you stuck your foot in your mouth.
It gives me great comfort to know that the year 4005 will never know my "fog".
These are the words of my advisor and professor, Dr. Xavier, coming from the lips of my lab partner, Pennie. These words had an instant calming effect on my fit. I am not the type of person who can be easily disturbed, be it by a scary movie, an awkward situation, or many of life's stressful burdens. But on this November day, at 2:40 AM, I was Atlas, crumbling under the weight of a world to heavy to carry anymore. I was stuck in a rut again and seasonal depression had been crawling away from the summer sun and had been heading in my direction since spring had cast it off. The slimy, cracked, aching hands of depression grabbed for fresh soil, pulling its naked, gray, crippled body behind it and it made its way to bum fuck Egypt's academic headquarters, the middle-of-nowhere Metropolis - it had made its way through the small, weird, and removed town in which I lived.
There is still a set of invisible scratches in my front door, where it clawed and pawed at the door, which I would not open, until it popped it from its frame. The crippled and diseased creature pulled itself across my floor, closing the gap between it and me, and evidence of the battle which ensued still lurk around my gloomy basement apartment: used dishes from many meals ago on the table (certainly to discourage the creature from getting any closer), dirty clothes tossed carelessly around the house (assuredly thrown at the creature, in self defense), and pillows and blankets curled in a ball on the couch (surely the only spot in the house which the creature cannot reach) where I have been sleeping/vegetating for two weeks. There are also multiple piles of paperwork (which I hide behind to confuse the creature) and Chubbers, the cat (a valiant feline companion, who has braved the weather and war and fought beside me in every wintry battle. His only complaint is when dinner is late, and it is, in every respect, polite).
If the words of my professor are correct, this crippled, draining creature will die with me and the story of our great war will likely not reach the ears of the citizens who reside in the year 4005. Given the off chance that these citizens do hear about my great war, it will seem at best to be the smallest pinching battle of all time. They will not care if the creature and I died as equals in battle or if peace was made between the two of us. Perhaps victory will be mine to claim? Or, on a particularly dark and weak day of the future, perhaps my small gloomy basement apartment fortress will have been taken over by the creature and I will be left waving the saddest white flag my family has ever seen.
It is the year 4005. We will be dead, our research published.Our lives, careers, and dreams will be done. No one will see the drag marks, made by our inner demons, circling the house like vultures. No one will see the pieces of earth, stuck in the corner, which you overlooked while trying to clean up the mess you made when you let that heavy planet roll off your shoulders and crash to the bottom of the universe. No one will care about the tiny things, either - the bad grade on a test, that day you hair stood straight up, the day you cried in front of someone, the dinner that was ruined because you somehow burnt soup, the day you looked too fat in those jeans, the day you stuck your foot in your mouth.
It gives me great comfort to know that the year 4005 will never know my "fog".
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