‘Death is not the boogeyman humanity relishes it to be.’ ~ EON
Upon reading Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, especially the amazing chapters 39 and 40, it becomes apparent that Death could be, or is, not an entity, but the end of entity. It is neither a demon nor a boogeyman, but it scares people like one, so they give it faces and paint intentions on it and write stories about it and give it attributes and agendas, hostile ones, so that they may better understand it and, if possible, avoid it.
But after all has been said and done, death is no more real than the dark in the night, the dark that comes as the light falls away, the abyss that spreads as the departing light leaves behind a void all too present in one’s field of vision, which one registers as the onset of something terrible. People give it names, like Charon, or Shadow, and apply big terms to it, like Emptiness, Light’s Enemy, Realm of Evil, where unnatural things dwell, and other such bombastic monikers.
The truth is there is no enemy, no entity in the dark, no form or substance in death. There is only the absence of entity. There is only the absence of light in the sky and the absence of light in one’s body and mind. There is only the nothing and no-longer, which highlight the something-that-used-to-be, leaving one with the pain of loss, which is what death is all about. The pain of loss. The agony of having removed something.
In other words, nothing doesn’t exist, and can’t exist unless something exists. Therefore, in the wonderfully contrarian way in which logic works, if one discounts the gaping dark wound left behind every time a chunk of life is bitten off, and the pain that comes with it, death is life’s ultimate validation. The pain lets you know you’re still alive, and present.
Intrigued? Watch this space for more.
From the collection of writings EON: THE ANGRY COMING OF AGE