Tag Archives: mortality

Would I Know?

The sound of the clock, each tick bringing it a little closer

An owl hoots in the park

A fox barks

Cars pass outside

The bed is warm

Somewhere a couple laugh

Time creeps onwards

I roll over

Sleep envelops,

I dream

Is death one long dream from which we never wake? And, if so would I know the difference between the state of dreaming and that of death?

What Happens To Your Online Presence When You Die?

A firm of lawyers are recommending that people attach a list of their social media passwords to wills in order to make it easier for relatives to access them after the user dies. In this digital age when most people have some form of online presence the issue of what happens to accounts on the demise of the user is of growing significance. For all you bloggers out there (including myself) this article raises important albeit uncomfortable issues as few of us like to be reminded of our own mortality, (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2939685/Lawyers-urge-people-leave-social-media-details-including-Facebook-passwords-wills-alongside-family-heirlooms-savings-house-deeds.html).

The Darkness

Laughter in the bar. Drink flows, hail fellow, well met.

Standing at the urinal, looking out, through frosted glass into the darkness from whence we came and to which we shall return.

We fear the eternal night, surround ourselves with light but, when we look into the darkness we are faced, struggle as we may to avoid the truth of it,

with the inevitability of death, the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.

Returning once more to the laughter. The clinking of glasses while, outside the darkness waits, patiently to swallow me.

 

(I am blind but can distinguish between light and dark and perceive outlines of objects but not their detail. So, for example I might see a shape but have no idea as to whether it was a man, woman or tree).

Waves

Cars, like waves swish past.

Distant sound of engines forever passing, here then lost, tossed on the tides of time and space.

A horn sounds, a driver going somewhere perhaps.

 

My study. Books in cases stand. A poster on a wall, the dolphin swims, forever caught on paper.

 

The night is dark. Outside engines rev and die. In my room the dolphin looks down from the picture. A fish on a wall, how strange.

 

Thoughts travel with vehicles along endless roads, while I sit, the dolphin looking on, swimming perpetually on a wall.

A Cup Of Tea

A cup of Earl Grey, no sugar, just milk. I lift and sip. Bits of china, fragile as a life disintegrate and fall away. Tiny pieces of broken existence nestle in my hand. A chip crater-like decorates the fragile under belly of the handle. I continue to drink. The handle holds. Once finished the plain white cup will be discarded, it’s utility at an end. The landfill beckons.

Darkness

From the darkness we came and to the darkness we shall return.

 

The above words came to me when I woke up today, on a gloomy UK morning. Looking them up on the web there are variations on the quote but not the precise wording given above.

 

We come from the dark womb then, sooner or later we enter, as Hamlet so eloquently puts it “The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns”. Am I in a dark mood? Not particularly. The quote popped into my head this morning and seemed appropriate to share it.