grume
as a child i had never experienced death. too young to keep family pets, but when i was old enough they were too much work to take care of. but never close enough to any relatives to visit funerals. of course i had heard of a phenomenon called a funeral, but i never partook in that— celebration to some and a mourning party to others.
despite all, death fascinated me. the slopes and curves of flesh mammals had, the soft and stringy insides when tore open, the red liquid of blood that oozed out any minor slash or tear that was made in the soft muscle many had wearing over their insides. and how it all would break down. how skin would sag and darken with only a few days of decay, how fluffy fuzzes of mold and fungus grew and fed off of the dying cells of a carcass.
when movies or tv shows showed gore i would always lean into the screen to catch a closer look at the inside. humans are said to be machines, yet when stripped of all their flesh they only look like meat. ground beef you buy at the grocery store, minced red slices of muscle. the cutting of stomachs in hospital documentaries was always the most entertaining part, to let me see a glimpse of what i am on the inside. to let me see that all i really am is a few pounds of protein, made up of tissues and wet mucuses that stuck to everything.
bones and tissue all are inside us. sticking to one another to make the things we call bodies. whenever you are made aware of these things inside you, muscles and bones and other bodily structures and substances, its like you can feel them inside you. you can feel the rub of your bones against one another as they move to make your body malleable and flexible. you can feel the blood pumping in your veins automatically, your lungs expand as they intake oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, and you can feel the ache your bones give off as if they try to resurface in your skin.
i want to touch the inside of a person. not in a sexual manner, but in a deeply intimate and vulnerable way. to be turned inside out, your organs and flesh brightly glowing red and pinks as each of us are inside, is to fully give yourself to a person. and to literally and physically show all of yourself to a person. i wish to be that close with another, for them to willingly show off their organs as a safe keep item. to bare themselves completely naked inside and out. feel the soft warmth come from the sack of meat that is their kidney or stomach, stroke with tenderness their intestines as they hold it out on a silver platter, carefully coddle their heart as it beats to keep them alive.
many children wish to be firefighters, astronauts, doctors, dancers, the like. but of course i had to be different. although i never voiced it, fearing the ostracization of my peers, i had always wanted to work with the dead. the most uncomfortable i have ever seen a human is when i mention i like the dead, and would willingly handle and touch a person who once used to be living. who once used to talk, smile, breathe air and reproduce the cells they no longer can. strangely, they find the thought of decay to be frightening or disturbing even when its a natural process. everyone will rot eventually.
i don’t believe in a god. i don’t believe that i will go to either heaven or hell, or revert back into another body through reincarnation. when i die, i believe i will simply see nothing. hear nothing, smell nothing, breathe nothing. all senses gone with the death of my cells. i simply believe that nothing will happen after death, and that i will die as life had been. absolutely meaningless
