Everything is pitch black, completely dark.
I am nothing but the dark.
I am scared that this is going to mean nothing more than laying here for endless years, no control over anything, lonely, and in the dark.
I suppose this situation would be suffocating, except I don't need to breathe. I would be cold, except the cold doesn't bother me.
I suppose there's really nothing to be afraid of; I'm completely isolated from the world in a box deep under ground.
No harm can befall me; I'm already dead.
***
Dark yellow afternoon light fell heavily through thick curtains, softly illuminating a square room filled with people. Some walked slowly past a casket while others stood around in small groups, speaking softly. Other people wept; a girl in her early teens sat in a straight backed chair, slumped over. Her mother's hand smoothed rhythmic circles on the back of her dress. Her mother looked like she too had been crying some time earlier, her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and sadness seemed to weigh on her like a lead cloak over her wide shoulders. The girl's own thin, bony shoulders shook as she sobbed into her hands.
The father, a burly and powerful looking man, stood by the entrance, shaking hands or hugging the people who entered. He stood straight and tall, but his face looked as though something in his chest was causing him great pain.
As the light softened and faded, the casket was solemnly carried outside to a waiting car. A procession of cars wound through narrow streets to a small cemetery presided over by great, lush trees in the full colors of Autumn. The cars began to line the narrow roads running like a grid across the lawn dotted with trees, headstones, and concrete benches. Next to a deep, long hole in the ground stood a temporary canvas gazebo shading a thicket of folding chairs. People got out of their cars and gathered together in clumps and pairs. Children raced across the thick grass, laughing and playing, enjoying themselves despite their surroundings and circumstances.
A few of the children plucked brightly colored plastic flowers and toys from the bases and sides of headstones, delighted with their findings until their parents ordered them to return their newfound treasures to where they belonged.
The family of three, heavy shouldered mother, straight backed father, and weeping daughter made their way to the chairs and sat down.
***
Everything is dark and I am bored.
The funeral service was nice, but my inability to respond to anything was stifling.
My heart ached for my mother and father. I heard my sister crying once, and then again all through my mother's talk at the service. There was nothing I could do to comfort any of them.
I was scared right after the casket had been buried. I haven't been able to see anything since my eyelids were closed, but all sound ceased when my casket was lowered into the vault. I almost felt like I was suffocating until I remembered that I don't breathe anymore.
Now it is dark and quiet and there isn't much to feel.
I can feel the velvet against my bare arms, and the clothing on the rest of my body, but the air in here is still and unmoving. I suppose it's cold down here, but I am not uncomfortable, thank god. Or not. As far as I know, there's no afterlife, so why would there be a god? I haven't met a god, and I don't expect to. I never really did. In life, I didn't believe in a god.
The moment of death meant nothing more than the cessation of pain, and control over my body and senses. I wish I had been cremated, instead of enduring this unending consciousness.
It's dark. I don't know why I keep repeating that.
It's dark.
It's still dark.
It's going to be dark forever. I'm going to be here forever.
I never really thought myself outgoing in life, but my current state of undeath and loneliness is making me reconsider.
I had friends. I had family. I wasn't isolated or shy, but I didn't particularly seek out company.
What I wouldn't do for a conversation with anyone but myself right now...
Dark.
...think I'm losing the use of my mind.... never thought of thinking as a sense, like seeing, smelling, and hearing... nothing to do down here... thought is the only interaction I have with the world. There's nothing to hear, smell, or taste... but there's a little of something to touch. Touch doesn't count when you can't move.
Time has no meaning, nothing to measure it by. No clock hands, no sunsets no sunrises, no light contrasted with dark. No change in my emotional state... Not scared, not bored, not happy or angry or depressed.
...getting used to the dark, different shades of black in black... Used to see patterns under my eyelids when I lived... These are nothing like those patterns... maybe light is required... There is no light here. No light. No light. No light. Only-
Dark
*
Body breaking apart, breaking down- my abdomen collapsing, my joints loosening, my muscles unwinding and pooling, my skin tearing. My body crawling and oozing, my bones exposed through my flesh like the stone skeletons of the mountains, -flash of memory and lucidity, -I used to drive by them every day, windows down, trees, green or orange or bare-branched and gray, whirling, streaking past my own fragile little car.
*
Thought is no longer my only sense of my small world. I can smell the effects of my body decomposing. This is the most unpleasant thing I've experienced since the actual moment of my death.
*
My consciousness fragmenting, spreading out and breaking up.
Breaking down and breaking up... like a tv screen full of black and white fuzz, a cell phone connection going into a tunnel, radio static. At least forever isn't anymore-
Anymore isn't forever.
The dark. The dark isn't forever.
The dark is just now... Now is forever.
The dark... only not dark, not dark, not dark. Static, fuzz; lighter dark and darker dark.
I am...
I, am.
I am... slipping. Sliding, thoughts like walking with a bowl of water, liquid sloshing and spilling over the edge, droplets. Droplets scattering. St-st-stuttering, bre ak ing u p.
I.
I,
I-I-I.
One...
One word, but not one mind. One letter. One me? Me, two letters, still one.
W....
e
We?
We.
We, no I anymore.
Many, so many.
We are many. Live in the dark, of the dark. Still, dark is not forever.
Someday, emerge into the light once again; New Life.
Thinking they can stop time, but they eat the bodies of their ancestors every day, and ancient stardust lives on in them as us, and as Them. We are what they say is primitive, but they are the ones who don't realize;
Everything Lives
Forever.
