Saturday, July 30, 2005

If I were a fish


Have you ever wondered whether you will become a fish after you die? I do, in fact I confess that I often do...
As somebody else already said, we know nothing about death except that the dead lie rigid and motionless, cold and pale. Only the dead know of the experience of death. All we see in a dying person are the last signs of life as we know it. But that doesn't mean that I cannot speculate, hypothesize, fantasize and write about my time after death. I say 'time' though I'm not entirely sure I want to belong to a world run by time after I die...forgive me, i digress. So what if I were a fish? Well then I'd want to be the kind of fish that swims in space, navigating by the stars, floating towards bubbling suns that keep me warm and, by the clarity of their radiant light, allow me to see the outer reaches of the galaxies, the limits of my territory. No, I don't think i'd want anything to do with the cold, dark oceans on Earth. Of course I'd have to devise a very deft method of adaptation to the black soup around me. I would need to grow galactic gills for one, they'd stop me from choking to death, another death, after which I might become a squid. I'd have to learn to avoid the inevitable predators too, becasue yes, even in the placid void of space there are predators who would give a great deal to snap up a humble floating fish. And then there's the problem of what I would do. Would floating from place to place suffice? Would feeling the complete weightlessness of being nothing within nothing be liberating? Yes, I can see already that there are many parameters to take into conisderation, life as a fish after death is no laughing matter, no simple venture...mmm...what if I were a bird?

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