Beyond Death

What lies beyond death? What awaits us in the root of the unknown, past the last brink of our meager knowledge? It is beyond my ken; I stand defeated. And yet I remain defiant, for the final enemy shows prisoners no mercy. But perhaps it is mercy? Was it not Socrates who asked whether death might not yet prove the greatest blessing that can await a mortal? I know not if I shall dissolve like an autumn leaf crumbled to dust by the wind, if I shall endure for eternity in a realm of boundless pain or pleasure, or whether there lies a middle road, something unspoken and unsuspected.

Things are impermanent. We grow old and pass away, laughing children become hardened by the stings of life, and even nations pass in time. Mountain ranges are created and worn away, and even the stars themselves, ancient beyond comprehension, fade away at last. But all moments appear so eternal—the now never fails to be the now. Now will never cease to be, and yet will cease to be the now. How to reconcile with this paradox? The books of ages crumble to dust at its touch.

When I walk beneath the shining Sun and see the unbroken blue sky stretched above me, the sight is so beautiful that it hurts. I feel a soft ache, a gentle sadness. Part of me wants the moment to last, wants to walk beneath the Sun forever, and yet my other, perhaps wiser half, knows that this is folly. For though I were endless, the Sun would still set, and night would come. Neither would the night last—that too is transient. I will have memories of the land of Sun and sky, but these memories will be mere shadows, and they too will fade in time, even the memory of what once was passing away when I leave.

Will I endure? No. Neither shall I vanish. The now, devoid of parts and separations, shall glint sideways into the void, coiling into nothing like a wisp of smoke. And yet there will always be a now. I perish, and yet I won’t be gone. I am not more than myself, but more than myself is me—patterns, traces will bloom and wilt like flowers as the years soar ever onwards. Others will spin their dreams from threads of letters, love their families, and care for friends. And perhaps, in eons hence, a small child will stand beneath the splendor of the arching blue, and know it for what it is—the present.