Thanks for DEATH

Posted on by Opher

I am presently working on a book called ‘The Book of DEATH’. I’m exploring death, including my own death. This is a little extract.

  • Thanks for DEATH

Yes, a slightly strange thing to be saying about something that causes so much grief, angst and misery, but I am grateful for death. Of course, I am distraught about the loss of friends, relatives and loved ones and I’m none too keen about the prospect of my own demise, yet I am still grateful for death. The idea of an interminable life fills me with horror. Can you imagine? I can’t.

Life. We’d probably all like a bit longer – preferably of the best bits – not a long drawn out end consisting of pain and decrepitude. Somehow, to splice in a few decades more into our teens, twenties and thirties would be nice. There’s no doubt that life is too short. No sooner have we worked out what we want to do than we are running down towards the end. Life is full of hundreds of possibilities. I’d like to try out a few more. I want to do more, achieve more. No time. The finishing line is already looming. I’m trying to cram in a last few efforts. It’s sad. It’s pathetic. It’s over.

Too short.

Yet even so I’m grateful for death. Knowing that there is an end makes everything more poignant, adds a spur to the boot. No time for hanging around. Get on with it. I can sense that line is just around the next corner – kinda gives it all its zest. Without that line this life could could be bland.

It also makes me appreciate how fortunate I’ve been. Fucking hell!! What a life. So much to be grateful for! No major illnesses or infirmity. Talk about lucky.

It’s impossible to catalogue all the components of such a brilliant life.

So grateful to have been brought up in a liberal tolerant family in a liberal tolerant country. My parents loved me and gave me freedom. They never imposed religion or politics on me. I had an ideal childhood running wild in nature. No oppressive regime sought to stifle my sexuality, thinking or politics.

So grateful to have become so connected to the joys of nature, to all manner of creatures and ecosystems. To explore and delve into ponds, meadows and woodlands collecting newts, lizards, snakes, frogs, toads and caterpillars, to understand and feel the connection to them. A joy. To have my pet mice, hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs, crows, pythons and tortoises – a joy.

So grateful to have found a partner to love; someone who has brought so much and made me a better person; someone who has help me make four bundles of ectoplasm to carry our packets of genes into the future. Watching them grow, interacting and guiding, learning from and just enjoying those wondrous conglomerations of cells. Seeing their lives unfurl (good and bad), their partners and families. Wonderful.

So grateful for the sun whose light and warmth gives life to everything.

Grateful for music that has pervaded all my life with its beat, its rhythm and poetic politics. So glad for the excitement.

So glad for the words and I give thanks to all the millions of people who invented words, who strung them together to fill my life with the wonder of other lives, distant places, other worlds, universes and times, other people and different lives. The vividness of the scenes they conjure up in my head is more than anything I’ve ever experienced in my ‘real’ life. They say a reader lives a thousand lives. I have.

Thankful for science; the fact that there are people who question, who set out to find out how, why, where and when; who are not satisfied with superstition and farcical religion; who want to delve into reality.

So grateful for the creatives, the artists, musicians, dancers, writers, sculptors, architects and designers who seek to interpret and reveal, to enhance and bring colour, light and rhythm to tease our senses, satisfy our palates and ecstatically interpret life.

So grateful for sex with all its passion, intrigue, messiness, tastes, flavours, sighs and gasps. Life would be all the less without some bestial rumpy pumpy.

So grateful for the chefs and brewers, who blend flavours, textures and colours.

So grateful for culture, costume and difference.

So grateful for education to open eyes, ears and minds to the wonders of the world and its people. At its best it expands minds and brings pleasure (at its worst it controls, shrinks and becomes a drudgery). So grateful I had the chance to do it right.

So grateful for inventions and all the wonders that have poured out of our collective imagination.

I don’t know if I am grateful for having so much to fight against – the senseless destruction, war, poverty, environmental disaster, conspiracy, stupidity and fascist politics. I guess I have spent a good part of my life opposing what I see as wanton destruction, racism, sexism and misogyny, and those forces that want to control us and impose their political or religious views upon us. Fuck them all. But I guess that fighting for a better world makes for a worthy life.

All these things bring joy or purpose to our brief journey.

So glad that death is there to sharpen the experience so that we taste it all the deeper! So glad for death!

Without death would our brief lives be as poignant? I think not.

Thanks for death!

The Death Diaries – The Final Frontier

Posted on by Opher

I’m busy writing my book on death – The Death Diaries. I’m enjoying it!

  1. The final frontier.

Death is the final frontier.

Bollocks.

Death is the end. There is no frontier. A frontier implies that there’s something on the other side.

There is nothing after death – at least nothing we can be at all certain of. That is what terrifies us. Everything we hold dear; our minds, our lives, our family, friends, possessions, likes and dislikes, and the whole damn universe blinks out of existence for ever.

That is so sinister and final that we invent religions in order to avoid having to deal with it.

We can’t bear the thought that we will cease to exist; that the universe will go on without us, that there is no plan, no purpose, no reason.

All life, the universe and everything is all an accident. Infinity gives plenty of scope for an infinite number of totally improbable accidents – given enough time, space and chemistry. That’s what I believe. I’m an accident.

I am a firm believer in accidents.

I am not a believer in gods, angels, heavens, hells, satan or fairies. I believe them to be products of fevered minds struggling to come to terms with reality.

I believe life happened by chance; it evolved.

I believe consciousness is merely a survival mechanism.

I’m not sure how the universe blinked into existence through some Big Bang but I feel no need to invent another mystery in order to explain it. If god did it then where did god come from?

I believe in science, evolution and chance.

When I read creation myths like Adam and Eve they are farcical.

When I consider the notion that there is a heaven and we will meet up with dead friends and family to live forever in some paradise, that is beyond farcical; that is absurd. They are all invented in order to deal with our neurosis about death. I don’t like pretence. I don’t like psychological games invented to fool ourselves into believing that we don’t really die. I view religions are human creations; attempts to explain the Big Bang and life and death. For me they explain nothing. They’re a sham. I prefer to marvel at the wonder of it. We are surrounded with the unknown. Religion doesn’t come near to explaining it. Science only gives us glimpses. Art and nature abound with it. I like to sit in the mystery with a sunset or fire to transport me into the contentment of wonder. Life, the universe and death are wondrous cycles to be absorbed into the psyche and relished. I reject all simple answers. We have life. We live in a spectacular universe. We die.

No, for me, death is final.

This life is all we have. I aim to live every second and make the most of it. There’s nothing more.

When my brain shuts down I will cease to exist forever.

Do I like that? No.

But I don’t want to create some ridiculous, fanciful story in order to shield me from the reality of the abyss of eternity. I can’t remember anything from before I was born. That’s because I didn’t exist.

That’s how death is.

This then is the story of my death.

The Death Diaries – Chapter 68

Posted on by Opher

Over a decade ago I had the idea of writing a book about death! I was in my sixties and was realising that the end was nigh! I thought I would record my thoughts and feelings as well as bringing together a bit of research and gathering some views around the thorny subject of death.

Four of my friends died last year. That focusses the mind.

Over the course of years I keep returning to the book and, as the mood takes me, adding a little bit. It’s become very rambley but I kinda like that. I’ve amassed over a hundred pages. This is chapter 68!

Egocentric Solipsism and other after death philosophies.

    Death; the end or a new beginning?

    So what have I got to look forward to after death? According to many different people there’s an afterlife to look forward to. Except nobody seems quite certain about what this might consist of. I wonder what they have dreamt up. There are so many different versions.

    I kind of like the egocentric soliptic view of death. Solipsists believe that they are the only thing that exists. If that is true the whole universe comes out of my imagination. When I die the whole cosmos ceases to exist. Neat.

    I bet this philosophy is the one Trump goes for!!

    There are many other views of what our fate is after death. We, as a species, have certainly spent a lot of time and effort contemplating death and its aftermath. What is striking is that each religion and faith ardently believes that their version is the only one that is true. They’ll fight you to the death to defend it!

    The Hindu’s believe that we will be reincarnated 52 million times – first as plants, then microbes, then invertebrates and work our way back up to human beings. Jains even go so far as to wear veils so they don’t inadvertently inhale living organisms and brush the ground in front of them. After all, you could be stepping on a relative. At least that gives us a good reason to look after the planet and all living creatures as well as something to do why whittling away the seconds of eternity!

    The small matter of death and what happens after is very vexing. But then are we really alive at all?

    This could all be one big dream. The entire universe might have slipped out of some ephemeral somnambulant whimsy as my subconscious wistfully conjures up this unlikely cosmos in some random fantasy. Or this might all be the dream of some superior being? Or are we all electrons whizzing around in some computer simulation? Are we characters in some superior version of Mario Brothers? Or some sinister version of The Matrix?

    There again it could be that we are already dead. This is the afterlife!

    Probably not.

    Some beliefs in the afterlife are patently nutty. The Rastas have developed the strangest belief. They reckon that if you live a good Rastafarian life you are reborn in the magical land of Ethiopia. They see this as a returning to their roots. All very well but I can’t see there is a great deal to aspire to in that. If the best you can hope for is to be reborn in a Third World country ravaged by war, starvation and poverty with an infant mortality rate of 68% then you are not setting the bar very high.

    I much prefer the Aztec idea. Their warriors were spurred on with the promise that if they died in battle they would be reincarnated as butterflies or hummingbirds.

    The concept of an afterlife has proved very useful for chieftains, Kings, Emperors, religious leaders or generals looking to raise armies to fight wars. It’s OK. Fight for us and you won’t die; you’ll gain eternal ecstasy!

    The afterlife and religion has been used by most cultures as drivers to encourage people to kill, to go into battle, to fight for an idea, a leader or some cleansing purpose. It’s usually to increase someone’s power or wealth. Warriors are encouraged to pray, dress in a certain way, paint their bodies blue or adorn them with magical symbols in order to ensure their safety. Should the wishes of their god mean that they lose their life they are assured a place in paradise and will wake up in a wondrous place with everything they could ever hope for.

    Sounds like bollocks to me. Makes me smile when I note that all these religious leaders or military leaders are never to be found on the front line putting their own lives at risk. Putin is in his bunker. The Jihadists like Bin Laden are deep in their caves. They are too important to risk in battle! Or is it that they don’t believe the bollocks they are dishing out? Whatever! Needless to say, they don’t strap on the explosives or fly the planes into skyscrapers. They get their minions to do that.

    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the idea of death any more than you do. Not something I’m looking forward to. I just know that it is inevitable. I am ageing. You could say that I am already dying. Some indeterminate time in the not too distant future I will get a pain or suffer an event and I will start dying for real. That’s why I started writing this book; to record the process.

    There is no way to avoid this fate. It is on my mind!

    I could try a dollop of science to provide me with eternity. When I do get ill I might try a bit of cryogenics and have myself frozen and thawed out once they’ve discovered a cure for whatever illness I go down with. They might have even cracked mortality. We could live forever in our own bodies without fear of death. Not sure how I’d feel about that. After a million years it might begin to drag. Probably as bad as heaven!

    No. I’m resigned to death though I’m presently thinking that I wouldn’t mind having a few more decades, or even centuries, before the inevitable. I like life.

    I accept that in reality death will happen sometime during the next twenty years. I’ll die. It might be sudden or it might be a slow deterioration and something I can write about in this book. I intend to tell you about how it feels and what I think about it if I can.

    Death is not something I wish to have any deeply held beliefs about. I prefer life. Death can take care of itself. I want to live my life to the full, pack it with fulfilment and do what I can to cause pleasure and contentment for myself and others. I have an affinity for nature and do what I can to further the harmony of the natural world. Our treatment of each other and the planet distresses me. That’s a modicum of altruism for you.

    I’m investigating death. It intrigues me.

    Anybody who assures you that they know about death and the afterlife is talking bollocks.

    I kinda think that if we didn’t believe in religions and afterlives; if this life was all we thought we had, we might look after ourselves, others and nature a hell of a lot better!

    I suppose, like Albert Camus, I’m a nihilist. I don’t believe there is anything after death. Like him I also believe that this brief splutter of life is utterly absurd.

    Wonderful though life is I can’t help but shake my head at the sheer stupidity of mankind. The mess we have made. We have divided the world into tribal nations; spend the bulk of our ingenuity and intelligence or building weapons and carrying out acts of violence. The bulk of us live in poverty while a tiny number have hundreds of thousands of times more than they could ever need. Starvation, disease and deprivation are the lot of the majority. We destroy the natural world and pollute our own environment, periodically blowing it all up and rebuilding it. We elect fascists and highly damaged narcissistic nincompoops like Trump, Johnson and Farage; men who promote hate, division and tribal racism, who perpetuate the crooked system. And still we consider ourselves intelligent.

    If we were intelligent I reckon the world would be organised a lot better than this. We wouldn’t be tribal, racist or shackled to ridiculous religious beliefs. We’d have far greater equality. Everybody would have enough, and more. Happiness and fulfilment would be the norm. We wouldn’t waste our money on destruction. The natural world would prosper alongside us and we wouldn’t be shitting in our own beds.

    I blame the state of the world on this invention of an afterlife!

    Give me death any day!

    The Death Diaries

    Posted on by Opher

    I started writing this book about twenty years ago. I was in my fifties at the time and was obviously beginning to become aware of ageing and my own mortality. I thought it would be an interesting literary exercise to record my decay and approach to death. As a writer I believed it would be an interesting exercise to record my thoughts and feelings regarding death and describe the symptoms and impact as the inevitable approached.

    I envisaged that in the ensuing years I would wake up one day with a pain, a lump, a cough or such-like and receive a diagnosis. Then I could the symptoms and emotions. Interesting. So I called the book ‘The Death Diaries’.

    Well, twenty years have passed and I have aged. The process has been slow and frustrating as I lose strength, libido and energy, as my body develops aches and limitations, as my memory fades and my sharpness recedes, but, so far, no incident I can identify, no diagnosis, no terminal illness or date I can hang on my death. I live and function and greatly enjoy life.

    This book has been something I have returned to periodically as the muse struck me. I used it as a vehicle to investigate death and my thoughts regarding it. I’d written around fifty pages when I lost it. A computer hard drive failure. The book was dead. I resurrected a number of bits and started again. This is Death mark two! Death warmed up as my Mum used to say about how she was feeling.

    Today I passed a hundred pages and thought I’d share a little. Below is today’s rough effort!

    The Death Diaries

    So what do I expect to happen after I’m dead? Will I discorporate and find myself up at the ceiling looking down at my dead body? Will I drift around as a wispy spirit, a ghost, to wander the earth forever? Will my guardian angel be there to guide me? Will I be attracted to a tunnel of light? At the other end of that tunnel will I be ecstatically reunited with lovers, friends and relatives (no enemies or nasty people)? Will I be dragged down screaming by demons to burn forever and be tormented in pits of burning sulphur? Will I be carried on the back of a giant condor to a fabulous land where I will spend forever? Will I spend eternity singing in a celestial choir and worshipping god? Will I wake up in a glorious paradise where the weather is always warm, but not too hot, cooled by fountains and waited on by twenty four handmaidens whose only task is to bring me pleasure? Or perhaps I will find myself in a great hall on a wooden bench at a long wooden table groaning under the weight of meat and tankards of ale being waited on by buxom wenches? Will I have to pay Charon to cross the Styx? Or bribe St Peter to put my name in the book so I can pass through some pearly gates? Will I find myself in a happy hunting ground? Or will I become a star travelling through the Milky Way? Will there be a camp among the stars where I will meet up with friends and family? Will I come back as a blue bottle fly or slug? Or will my good Karma lead me to life as a happy person, a man (or woman) of contentment, creativity, fulfilment and wisdom? Will I join with some universal mind and find my identity dissolve into oneness with everything? Or, as my mother believed, would I go off to the mansion of restoration and healing where I will be healed of all physical, mental and emotional ailments, restored to new and sent out for another dose of life to learn new lessons so I can progress to higher and higher levels and achieve perfection?

    Well, as you might imagine, I reckon it’s none of the above (even though a few are quite appealing). It always amazes me that people are perfectly capable of simultaneously holding a number of these options and outcomes. It also amazes me that every culture has different after-death variations that seem remarkably to suit the needs of their circumstances. The American Native Indians imagine a land abundant with wildlife to hunt while the Norsemen imagine a great feast with plenty of meat, ale and sex, the desert Arabs imagine a Paradise with cooling fountains and plenty of sex, while the poor Christians have to content themselves with harps, cherubs and chaste singing forever. The other thing is that the women always seem to get a rough deal. They are only ever there to wait on the men and give them limitless sexual pleasure. You can’t imagine that the kitchens providing the food for those eternal feasts are manned by men can you? It’s the poor women doing the cooking and washing up!

    You don’t think that these visions of eternity are the product of very macho, male-centric patriarchies, by any chance?

    Every culture has its own version and every culture insists that its version is the only one that is correct. There are as many after-death myths as there are cultures. Most of these stories have already passed into eternity and are as dead as dodos. The ones that are new enough to be written down still exist. We find most of them utterly ridiculous, fanciful and quaint (while clinging to our own stories) and recite them to our children as fables and myths while keeping a suitable whimsical smile on our lips. Those people can’t be blamed. They are so innocent. They didn’t know.

    It’s a shame really. I quite fancy a flight on a giant condor and sailing through the Milky Way has a certain charm (though I can’t help wondering if the Cherokee who envisioned following that trail to the camp among the stars really had any concept of the distances involved).

    No. For me (with a sad sigh) I have to put all these fabulous eternities aside. As I die I imagine the biochemistry in my brain cells will grind to a halt, the cells will die, the neural complex that connected me to my sensory input will decay, the electrical network (I use the term lightly) that forms the construct of me as a person, my personality, thoughts and memories, will fade away, and I will cease to exist.

    The universe will simply have to go on without me.

    I am sure that the loss of my consciousness will impact greatly on the billions of galaxies and countless zillions of stars and planets that make up this infinite universe. My loss will be mourned west of Beetlejuice. My influence will ripple through infinity forever! The impact of my life will resound!

    No it won’t. I’ll just be gone forever.

    The universe will go on and on and I won’t know. My body will decay. Tissues will break down. Atoms and molecules will flow into the air and fluids seep into the ground. I will be consumed by decomposing worms, maggots, bacteria, fungi and various invertebrates. My bits will dry and blown in the wind. My skeleton may even fossilise. All my atoms, like all the atoms that have ever been in my body, will be released to play with other atoms, forever. They are perpetual motion machines that will only fall apart when the universe cools to absolute zero – -273.15 Celsius. That will take quite a while. Meanwhile, after a mere few billion years, the sun will expand into a red dwarf and incorporate the earth and most of the other planets and I will shine just like my Mum always said I would.

    God’s Bolt – A Sci-Fi classic.

    Posted on by Opher

    I was in conversation on line concerning drama. When you are writing a novel it is important to create drama and suspense in order to draw the reader into the story. A skilled writer creates character and drama. I was explaining how I had deliberately sabotaged the usual sequence of a novel by starting at the end. Throughout the book the reader knows the outcome. The challenge was to engage the reader in the suspense and intrigue despite them knowing the outcome.

    This is that book. Only you can judge how successful I was.

    God’s Bolt: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781092713597: Books

    Chapter 1 – The End and the Beginning

    Year 2178 – Impact day

    I have never felt so utterly alone. A raging storm of nausea was gnawing at my belly as I began my routine morning broadcast – except that there was nothing normal about this one.

    ‘Good morning everybody,’ I said cheerily, putting on my best smile. ‘This is Helen Southcote beaming down to you from the United Nations International Space Station.’

    I was totally unsure of the wisdom of continuing these tridee broadcasts, particularly on such an auspicious day as this. Who on earth was tuned in? Surely they’d all be in a panic, desperately seeking safety for themselves and their loved ones. Nobody would be at all interested in any platitudes from me. But the powers that be, in the form of mission controller Brad Noone, had assured me that it was necessary. The psychologists thought that it might help to continue with normality and reduce panic. Who was I to argue? They’d provided me with a script. I suppressed my anger and upset. Put aside my personal feelings about what had happened to my friends. The show had to go on. I was doing it for the kids, I kept reminding myself – it was for the kids.

    ‘The earth sure looks beautiful spread out there below me.’ I showed them images of the planet below me with its green seas and swirling white clouds.

    With a lot of trepidation, which I hoped did not show too much, I turned my attention to the subject that was foremost in everybody’s minds. ‘Preparations are well underway to deal with the remaining threat from Chang’s comet,’ I assured them. ‘Missiles are poised to destroy the largest incoming rocks but President Khun Mae Srisuk has urged everyone to either seek sanctuary in the prescribed shelters or to evacuate to designated regions of safety. There are bound to be some meteorites that will cause some collateral damage. Better to be safe than sorry.’

    I offered them one of my best smiles. The cheery tones sounded so phoney to me.

    ‘This promises to be one of the most spectacular shows you’ll ever see,’ I promised them. Be reassuring I’d been instructed – be upbeat. Lie. Even the most optimistic reports were predicting widespread damage across the United States, Canada and into Russia. The earth was going to be bombarded with the biggest deluge of rocks in recent history. Chang’s comet was a monster and even broken up as it was, presented a real danger to the survival of the planet. They just had to hope that this time the scientists had got it right and every single major threat would be neutralised. It was a big ask. They had not managed such a brilliant job up to now. This last ditch effort was to target all the remaining large rocks and pulverise them in the upper atmosphere so that the remains would burn up on entry. If all went to plan it was certain to be the most amazing display. The worry was that if a single one of those chunks of rock was missed……………….……….. well that didn’t bear thinking about. ‘Make sure you watch from safety!’ I chastised them. There were always some thrill seekers who sought to put themselves in danger. ‘As for me, well I’ve got the best seat in the house, a real grandstand view. UNISS will be in exactly the right place to record the whole sequence of events and you can bet that I’ll be relaying it to you live as it happens!’

    I then proceeded to give them a dull and boring update on the various experiments taking place, the weather, solar activity and conditions in space. Normality. That’s what I’d been instructed to do.

    ‘This is Helen Southcote signing off until tomorrow. Be safe! See you soon’

    ‘Good job!’ Brad Noone intoned in his dulcet tones after I’d shut down. That was high praise coming from him.

    ‘Yes, Good one Helen,’ Happiness Ntobe added more enthusiastically. There was an element of wonder in her voice. She found it hard to believe that I’d pulled off such a jaunty performance in the face of such a terrifying prospect. I didn’t need telling. The mood back at Mission Control was one of great trepidation. It was tinged with fear verging on terror. They knew the real picture of what was coming and their confidence was not exactly riding high. Their minds were fixed on their family and friends. But I was a seasoned professional at the age of 33. I’d learnt to control my emotions. I’d been broadcasting for eight years now. I was used to it.

    The rest of the day was mine and it lasted an eternity. Time dragged. I immersed myself in the routine of the station. I had to check on the work of all my absent colleagues; looking in on the horticulture work of Jeff and Bander’s, the weird zero G chemistry of Lynn and Izabel’s as well as my own work. I saved Jomo and Remi’s lab until last. That was still too painful. It set me crying. Then I did a check of the station security. All the time I was doing my rounds I kept up a running commentary with Eunice, the station’s computer, and the guys at Mission Control – Brad, Neil, Janice and Happiness. I think they were doing the same as me – desperately trying to occupy themselves, to take their minds off what was shortly going to be happening, at least the human components were. Eunice was just a chunk of metal, plastic and electricity. She had no mind. I don’t think it worked for any of us though. No matter what I was doing I kept getting images of a huge rock battering into earth and the planet being smashed to smithereens. I wished I’d never seen those damn sensationalist media images. Stupid, irresponsible rubbish. President Khun Mae Srisuk should have put a stop to it. They never should have gone out.

    In the afternoon I resorted to putting the music on as loud as I could in order to drown out my thoughts and did my exercise routine with even greater ferocity than usual. Even that didn’t help though. Nothing could rid my mind of those images that were clogging up my head.

    After an eternity, the twilight horizon crept over the edge of the planet and the coast of the United States of America crept into view. Despite the mass evacuations it was still lit up like a giant funfair. The sight of it sent chills through me. I could imagine the scenes in the cities below me. I’d seen the news reports. It was pandemonium. Impact was centred right over the Eastern seaboard. One of the most populated places on earth. I know they’d moved most people out but it still did not bear thinking about.  I could imagine the huge throngs of superstitious religious lunatics – those who had called the event God’s Bolt and believed this asteroid was an act of God, sent to punish us for the sins of humanity – gathered on the hilltops praying to God and exalting him to spare them. Part of me desperately hoped they would prevail even though my rational self ridiculed their foolishness and maliciously hoped a meteorite or two would land right among them and put an end to their nonsense.

    Already the sky was lit up with a criss-crossing of orange streaks from the early vanguard of rocks liberated from the blasting of Chang’s Comet. They were harmlessly burning out in the heavens and putting on quite a display but one that was merely a precursor to the main show.

    The End

    Posted on by Opher

    The End

    The sun has set

                                                    Leaves have fallen

    Embers cold                      

                                                    Winter calling

    Teeth pulled

                                                    Cities decayed

    Meals not eaten

                                                    Beds not made

    There is no more music

    The hypnotic beat is silent

    Maggots feasted

                                                    Bacteria fed

    Fungal hyphae

                                                    Crawl through heads

    Dreams faded

                                                    Reality done

    Universe still

                                                    We’ve had our fun

    There is no more music

    The hypnotic beat is silent

    The end

    Opher – 21.1.2025

    The end

    Happy New Year!

    Posted on by Opher

    Back to reality!!

    I’d add in a few hundred more divisive, greedy, villains – Farage, Xi, Oban, Ali Karmenie, Netanahyu, Taylor Greene, all the evangelicals, Banion, Akhundzada and every billionaire on the planet.

    Legacies – An extract from The Death Diaries

    Posted on by Opher

    I am currently writing a book called The Death Diaries. It is an ongoing work. I intend to log the thoughts, ideas and feeling that surround my own death.

    Who knows?

    My death may be sudden and none of it ever get published. But it may be slow and I will be able to record it in words.

    Time will tell.

    In the meantime I occasional dip into it to write something about death. I’ve been writing it for over a decade as I contemplate my eventual demise.

    I wrote this section this morning:

    Legacies.

    I proudly said to my son Henry that I had just gained another contract to write a book on Ian Dury. We talked about it a while. I explained that there was no money in it but that I greatly enjoyed writing these books. He said that it was good to have a legacy.

    That sent me thinking.

    A legacy.

    We all have a legacy. Sometimes that legacy is measured in achievements, wealth or power. Sometimes it is measured in love, altruism and the help one gave. Sometimes we leave behind buildings, or change nations, bring in policies that affect millions, and sometimes it is a memory of the help you gave to the old lady next door.

    We all leave a legacy.

    Some legacies resound down the ages. Others are soon forgotten.

    Even the evil of Hitler and Stalin’s legacies of cattle trucks, death camps, gulags and torture chambers is perverted with time. Even Pol Pot and Mao will be revered by many and the killing fields and horrors of the cultural revolution reinvented into myths.

    All legacies eventually crumble to dust. Good or bad.

    When I am no longer here and my possessions distributed to the four winds, my books, records and clothes dispensed with, what will my legacy be?

    My four wonderful children? My grandchildren and the progeny I will never know?

    It is true, as Henry said, the books I have written will live on after me. But the fact of things existing after a person’s death is not necessarily a legacy. That depends if people read them and are moved by them. For me a legacy infers an impact.

    Perhaps my legacy partly lives on in the lives of all those I taught during the many years in education? The children I loved and raised? The partner I’ve shared so much with? The sum total of my experience and how that impacted on others, on life upon this planet?

    For legacies are our greatest failing, our biggest sin. This desire for immortality. This need to make a mark upon the world.

    Perhaps my greatest legacy will be to return my body to the cycle of nature, for it to rot and be absorbed into the bodies of billions, for bacteria, fungus and worms to gorge and sustain themselves, to give back to this incredible fragile cycle of life upon this jewel of a planet.

    I should be content with that. But I am not. I am human.

    I’m off to write a book on Ian Dury.

    Standing on a ledge

    Posted on by Opher

    Standing on a ledge

    We’re all standing on a narrow ledge.

                    Any moment we could fall.

    On the edge of an abyss

                    Could be at the end of it all.

    On the brink of nuclear holocaust.

                    We live every single day

    As if it was our very last

                    As we work, rest and play.

    Nothing is at all secure

                    Though we pretend it is.

    Swerving death every day

                    In this game of hit and miss.

    We expect every day to repeat

                    As if there is no change.

    But increment by increment

                    We mutate into the strange.

    Opher – 2.10.2022

    Life is short and fragile. The time when we are young is fleeting. At every turn danger lurks. It’s a wonder anybody lives to old age.

    One moment of inattention. One instant of bad luck. One push of a button. One pull of a trigger.

    Extinction Rebellion I love you

    Posted on by Opher

    Extinction Rebellion I love you

    Sitting in the smoke of a burning world

    As the deniers continue buying,

    The producers go on producing,

    And the rest of us give up trying.

    One group defiantly stands

    Against the absurdity,

    Protecting the last tree,

    Defiantly.

    Extinction Rebellion

    I love you.

    You know there’s nothing left to do.

    Bring it to a stop

    As the last bird warbles

    And nature’s for the drop.

    We’re selling the world for baubles.

    Standing on the rim of the Arctic desert

    As the oilmen sink their well,

    The politicians’ hard sell,

    And all we can do is yell.

    Only one group takes action

    In desperate disbelief

    Saving that last leaf

    From grief.

    Extinction Rebellion

    I love you.

    You know there’s nothing left to do.

    Bring it to a stop

    As the last bird warbles

    And nature’s for the drop.

    We’re selling the world for baubles.

    Opher – 11.9.2020