Category Archives: Death

PROMPT: Mars

Posted on by
Reply
Daily writing prompt
Do you think humans will ever colonize Mars? What would life there actually look like?
View all responses

Probably, and life will probably be short and toilsome for quite a while. Short because there’ll be loads of unintended consequence and we will probably learn there are many more aspects of Earth that are consequential to our wellbeing than we ever understood. Toilsome because, as European explorers in Africa thought that everything was trying to kill them, Mars colonists will find that there is not one thing there that wants them alive. Every task involves pushing a boulder uphill.

Nature DGAF [Haiku]

Posted on by
Reply
Photograph of bitterweed around a grave in a cemetery in Baku, Azerbaijan.
wildflowers grow
 around an unattended grave;
  pooped on by birds.

PROMPT: Named

Posted on by
Reply
Daily writing prompt
If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
View all responses

A random rock in the riverbed.

Bright Autumn [Free Verse]

Posted on by
2
Photograph of a cemetery on a beautiful day in the Fall, taken in New Orleans, Louisiana.
I want a bright Autumn --
   brisk & clear.

I want a colorful Fall,
   not one in which cold gray
      blanches all brilliant shades.

I want a windy Autumn:
    full of movement that 
       swirls & lifts anything
           that's light enough.

I want an Autumn that 
    draws people outside,
        not one that pens them.

I don't mind a bite of cold
     as long as I can see white
         clouds float through blue skies.

Deceased [Free Verse]

Posted on by
Reply
Photograph taken in Greenwood Cemetery of New Orleans, Louisiana.
clouds drift over
 the cemetery - 

unseen by all those
 upturned eyes.
  
What a glorious day
 to be deceased!

PROMPT: 100-year-old

Posted on by
Reply
Daily writing prompt
Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.
View all responses

Dear Dust,

Congratulations. You will now have made it to more countries than I did in life. I’m jealous.

Yours truly,

You (but Hydrated & Animated)

PROMPT: Ideal Day

Posted on by
Reply
Daily writing prompt
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.
View all responses

I wake up. I don’t die. I go to sleep.

Ivy & Stone [Free Verse]

Posted on by
Reply
Taken in the Old City of Baku, Azerbaijan.
There's something relentless
   in an old stone wall...
 But, also, cold and dead.
   One knows it will not stand forever --
       that it will go the way of
       ruins, rubble, stones, and dust --
       but, still, it can outstand any man. 
 Ivy climbs to camouflage the stone's
    cruel deathlessness,
 But then the ivy stands on the wall
    year after year after year...

PROMPT: Long Life

Posted on by
Reply
Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
View all responses

Living a long life while physically and mentally capable = great. Living a long life when you need advanced technology to achieve it and you’re just lying around like a slug without the ability hold a simple conversation = the worst circle of hell I can fathom.

One of the few books I’d recommend for everyone is Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” which shows that our great pride in increasing human life expectancy is not all it’s cracked up to be because the average quality of life at death has dropped in the process. Essentially, people are completing the marathon because we are dragging quasi-corpses over the finish line rather than allowing them to fail gracefully.

PROMPT: Magic Genie

Posted on by
Reply
Daily writing prompt
You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
View all responses

For any wish number one, wish number two always has to be that one suffer no adverse consequences of the law of unintended consequences (i.e. like Midas who turns his food and even his daughter into solid gold.) Wish number three should be that the receipt of wish number one does not rob one of any experience that makes one a better version of oneself in the long-run (e.g. like the lottery winner who had been chugging along through life just fine and then ends up broke and suicidal because of both the additional pressures and the lack of need to be frugal and satisfied with simple things.)

Personally, I don’t know that it’s worth it. The bill always comes due.

But, if forced:

1.) To be contented with what is.

2.) Healthfulness all around.

3.) To die a good death (in due time.)