Death
Imagine a beautiful woman lying on her back. Her face is serene and relaxed. Her body naked. Follow the soft curves and the transparency of her skin. In fact she is dead, in a sleep like pose. Now imagine that the surface of her skin begins to bubble and tremble with activity in the subcutaneous tissue until it cracks open with a million rifts, opened up by maggots eating away at the flesh and the fat, bursting through the perimeters of its container, gobbling it up until it is no longer recognisable as human form but a festering mass of flesh, blood and rot. A carcass. In reality one of the first things that happen to us when we die unattended, is that mould settles on the eyes, due to the moisture content. I have seen forensic photos of an old lady who died alone in her apartment. I don’t how long it took before the smell attracted the attention of the neighbours, but the layer of mould spread across her rapidly disintegrating eyes is clearly visible. Death is a messy business and no matter how much we pimp and preen our bodies, this is the way we all have to go. We all end up in the big fridge. Just think of it, whether you plan for burial or cremation, a special draw in the mortuary is reserved just for you and a white nametag to match as your only adornment, to be tied around your toe. Personally I’m opting for cremation, it seems like such a clean and efficient solution, culture versus nature – to be honest I just cannot deal with the image of my own face being eaten by maggots and worms, crawling through the sockets of my eyes, nibbling away at the once fleshy pink textures of my tongue and lips.
