Logicless Logic

it never really goes away does it?

"Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so."
-John Donne (Holy Sonnets: X)

He sits silently there, casting his gaze over the subject. The subject, weak and feeble glances up and makes eye contact with him, or rather with the inky blackness which their eyes perceive. The subject nods knowingly, that his time, if it was his to claim in the first place, was up. As soul seperates from the now lifeless body, the soul of the subject looks at him, not fearfully but quizically, as if to say "What now?" He truly did not know.

He came to release them from their shackles of mortality, of life and all that they have come to know in this world. He was their passageway to the next. Death he knew, and understood very well, was not the end of life, but the exit from which one passes on from life as normal people knew, to one which they did not understand. And when they exit, they leave everything that shackles them behind. Their family and friends, their assets, pain and pleasure. All they are allowed to bring is the memories of the times shared with loved ones, kept forever in the heart. He knew all these, knowledge not readily available to the common person from encyclopedias.

Which was probably why they were so frightened of him. They did not understand. They painted him in various forms in which they thought he appeared(which were readily available to the common person via various mediums). Of course he didn't really have a form in which they could see. He just appeared to them the way they expected his appearance to be. Which was commonly in the form of a hooded figure, either with a skull face or none at all, holding a long scythe, a pair of creatures with the head of a bull and a horse. Of course people didn't see him at all most of the time. Thus mostly he was formless, silently observing his charges of the day in the darkest corner of the room.

Mostly, he was explaining to his charges that he wasn't the cause of their exit from the world as they knew, but rather just a messenger and a guide, to bring them to what held for them in the next. It was rather much harder to do it without speaking but somehow they understood. Maybe death also brings about understanding beyond normal human comprehension. He didn't know what happened to his charges when they moved on. It wasn't his responsibility. His role was one in limbo between one world and another, never truly belonging anywhere. He just moves around in the darkest shadows, bringing news of freedom to the soon-to-die. He might be busy somewhere else at the moment, but he never really goes away.

justin.

posted by justin @ 11:35 PM