Musings - Deux

On my calendar, it's June 46. By some miracle, the Federal Government's stipend scheme which by all means is the minimum wage of my country had not found its way into my bank account. The same one that barely covers the expenses incurred for a month. Oh lawd, save a sister.   What then do I do?  I simply mount a bike and find my way to the Secretariat. Make some complaints, find a solution probably.

I am blown by the sense of dedication I experience here. It's about 8.45 and a good number of staff members are at work already.  For a state that butters up laziness, I mean; let's put some slack on it. Before 10 am, I'm done.  With below average apologies and kind compliments on my rather "long" hair. A bike back, I silently resolved.  As I mounted the bike, no particular thought crossed my mind.  Well, not until we fell behind a Toyota hilux with white clothes wrapped around something - someone to be fair. All the love I had for this timeless classic dissolved into the air of vanity only momentarily.

It was a very dead body.  The outline gave no much details but I needed no one to tell me.  The air around us was not putrid, it was an unsuspecting air.  But as my eyes fleetingly searched the faces of individuals seating on the back with the body, several thoughts crossed my mind.  Was it a man or a woman?  Young or old?  Pretty or not?  Must have had other plans before death came knocking. What could have killed him /her?  Was it even enough respect to transport a body without protection?  What if it rolled over and fell off?  That would be death after death. Like an assurance of being very dead.

In retrospection, I told myself again that this is as beautiful as we all are.  Make up on,  hair - wild and free, bodies supporting clothes, a couple of bucks to live on,  degrees to bag,  lips to kiss and maybe a family that keeps us warm. No matter how prepared we may seem, none of us prepares for death day. We carry on, optimistic of tomorrow and the next and then the  next. And it creeps on us like a shadow.  Snatching away our breathe like it never meant much. The sane option is to live each day like it’s the last. (As if it’s that easy yeah). Our perspective of life; the unspoken metaphor determines our lives more than we even realize or want to admit.

But death is not final. C.S. Lewis of the Chronicles of Narnia gives us the definition of it all in the Children’s fiction series… for us, this is the end of the stories – death. But all their life in this World had only been the cover and title page – the beginning of beginnings. Now, at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has ever read… yes, nobody wants to die yet its a part of our sojourn. Maybe tomorrow I'd be somewhere else too, stiff-cold, six feet under. Maybe it will be your turn. Maybe it's high time we live each day like it’s the last. Or maybe, our realities truly live in our short term thinking of life on here. And either way, death comes knocking someday.