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Tales From Burma -by- Richard K. Diran "If at the End of All This"
If at the end of all this, if there is anything left that could be called
"you" to remember this, if at the end of al of this, when the lens in
your eyes have thickened and expanded like the belt around your
waist along with the rest of the universe, or shrunk like the purple
gums which held your teeth, contracted like the salt crusted aorta of
your heart, objects which once appeared in sharp detail, minute
nuance, could now be either raisins or insects. The texture of a
brushstroke, the vintage on a bottle of wine are now hazy. We
respond to the memory of the thing that we are peering at rather
than at the thing itself, because we can no longer see the object
clearly. Impressionism, where the memory fills in the holes from
what is lost in direct observation. Did you hear that?
If at the end of all of this, there is anything left that could be called
"you" to remember this, if at the end of all this, standing alone in the
setting sun, naked with uplifted palms, gazing skyward at the
migrating flocks overhead, if at the end of all this, we are left with
the dignity to possess any semblance of cognizance, if the brain
functions at all and is not reduced to a feeble vegetable, clotted with
sluggish blood and black nerve-choked ganglions, scorched pathways
of the back-firing medulla oblongata, the shriveled cerebellum of an
ancient petrified wizened geezer, drooling down his stubble-covered
chin, strapped like a cabbage to a wheelchair, being spoon-fed
oatmeal and pureed bananas through a funnel by a malevolent nurse
who when not neglecting you finds you absolutely disgusting.
If at the end of all of this, when our ears sag to our stooped
shoulders, and only the cartilage in our noses continues to grow
gristle, with pores so large they contain bacterial cultures and small
philodendrons, if at the end of all of this when our sunken cheeks are
hung with colonies of sleeping bats, our teeth are missing, and that
golden visage which was once our face has been folded over like a
tattered blanket, whatever fine hair that still languishes is in liver
spots white as silk, or will only grow from moles. Our neck creased
like Egyptian parchment covered with spider webs, a deflated bag
hanging like a rag on a knobby stick.
If at the end of all of this, we are still young enough to have felt
cheated in life by not having lived enough, to feel that we will have
died prematurely without having fulfilled our dreams and our
passions, we will know that even now we are too old to have died
young.
If at the end of all of this, there is anything left that could be called
"you" to remember who we were, who we are, what we did in this
world, what mercy we extended, what evil we perpetrated, what joy
we shared, what pain we inflicted, our heroism, our cowardliness,
those we seduced, manipulated, destroyed, murdered, redeemed,
assisted, assassinated, betrayed or died for, we will have lived.
If at the end of all of this, when there is nobody else left in this world to remember this, I will still be there at the end of all of this, to remind you. |
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Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 by Kurt T. Francis, except as noted otherwise. Materials by Christopher G. Moore, Dean Barrett, Richard K. Diran, Sonia Pressman Fuentes, and Hardy Stockmann are copyrighted © by those respective authors. All rights reserved. Please see the Copyright Notice for further information. Click here for our Privacy Statement Please direct all inquiries to mekhongkurt@bangkokatoz.com |
