Passing as I have through this land of quiet shadows and tortured dreams, whilst living out this, my life of sorrow and pain, it seems I have discovered that true freedom is lost just after the dawn of our passing.
For although this death of mine has finally enabled my release from the trials, the heartaches, indeed the constant ravishment and bludgeoning of my all too fragile a soul,
And even though I have, upon the demise of my physical self, been finally rewarded a true and lasting peace, the price of this release,
The price of this peace has with it brought about the complete loss of my individual freedoms.
For the dead, once dead, are truly at the mercy of the living – the police, who investigate when necessary,
The doctors who perform their autopsies post mortem and the family’s grateful and total thankfulness to the staff of the funeral homes who work with due diligence to give those once tortured souls an everlasting smile of garish effervescence,
So much so that everyone alive will look and say, “Ooh, He/She looks so nice, just like I
Remember him/her”, and then walk away in their veil of hypocritical bliss.
In so doing, they are also destroying all evidence that might tend to support a growing theory concerning the existence of an overwhelming number of souls,
Similarly lost, similarly weakened, and one by one similarly
Vanquished by a darkness, vague and unassailable, a darkness unyielding in its goal of total absorption.
That is, the absorption of the life-force of all mankind, culminating finally with the assimilation of his soul into a single and universal spirit of oneness,
Destroying in its wake all memories of each tortured life and bringing to an end,
The awareness of that life filled with agony, assailed with heartache.
Yes, possibly it was a life best forgotten…yet perhaps it was in this life of anguish and woe that we were most truly free.
I do not mean to say free of pain, no, but rather am I saying that this pain of ours was at least more of our own choosing, as was the degree and intensity of our chosen torment.
For if and when we so desired, we could find time to ignore it, if only for a little while.
Because, warts and all, it was our life, belonging to us, and as such,
Thus did we cherish it, and thus could we never destroy it, even at times of greatest suffering.
After all, it was to us a life resplendent, and was indeed blessed with a spirit of true human individuality and freedom.
And more importantly, it was ours!