What Happens When We Die?

What happens when we die can perhaps be seen in juxtaposition to how we live.

A distant communication transmitted eons ago from another galaxy, another time

Taking a long time to coalesce into this information packet, this quantum sheath, this body.

Which when stable journeys through seemingly infinite energy states

burning brightly

Then begins an inexorable slow degradation, imperceptibly at first.

To nothingness, or at least back into the indigenous constituents that the carrier nanobot waves in the original transmission constructed from the surrounding environment:  carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus.

One day, this will all change, of course.

The source of the original communication will be identified.

Will we still have enough coherence to explore another frontier?

Volunteers will be culled from the roster.

To undergo infinitesimal sampling and digital reconstruction.

Broadcast into oblivion.

Graveside Chats

It's 1992. I'm at a cemetery.  It must have been in St. Louis.  Probably St Louis county.   Only my unconscious knows the precise location.  I was in front of a gravestone with my girlfriend.   She had her arm around me.   I don't remember the name on the gravestone.   Only the Star of David.  My girlfriend addresses the occupant of the grave:  "Grandma, this is the man I've  been telling you about.   I have chosen him to be with me.     As she says it her voice cracks, inconsistent with her usual confident attorney voice.  I was taken aback.  Very poignant.

It never came to be.  We haven't spoke in 20 years.  I remember checking out her internet footprint several years ago.   She had a blog.   I don't remember many details but it involved various photographs of her presumably at department store dressing rooms where she was analyzing potential clothing purchases.   I was embarrassed for her.   As she would likely be embarrassed if she ever read the crap in this blog.  She's been married now to someone else for many years.   Certainly for the best.
    

It's now 2014. I'm being sued by her in a federal lawsuit. Of course I'm dreaming all this, but at the time it seemed real. I'm still with her at a house on the hill. I can't understand why she filed suit against me.    I talk to her and she looks at me incredulously. I should know why. It's obvious I dropped the ball. I was supposed to pick up her grandmother and give her a ride to someplace.  I protested that I could still do it.   That there was still time.  But then I remembered that it was too late.  It was much too late.  I never gave her grandmother a ride.   I never would. 



 

 

 

So my neck continues to heal.  My doctor thinks I had a herniated disc.   I think she should stick to endocrinology.

The rain in Spain did not fall on the plane.   Or in the monastery.