Dead Feathers, Dead Fathers

I lie on top of the ground where you are now buried. And the forefathers before you. I lie on top of the pile now having relinquished life for a while.

For years I had been wondering what it might feel like to be where you are, now I know. State of existence, breath, life - all of them a myth. Our past, too, is a lie, and so is our present. Perhaps that is why we chase our future with such assiduity. Only the future can make things all right.

When I last saw you lying there that lonely autumn evening - motionless, cold, quiet, I wondered what happened to that part of your being that used to react to things. Had you really seen me enter the room, you would not have continued to lie there. You would embrace me, hold me tight and ask me if I was tired after the long journey. That evening you chose to remain quiet, and since then I have forever been blaming myself for your silence. I had reached home, only a life time late. The nest was gone. Only bodies piled under our treeless heaven. My forefathers and yours. Today, I rest on top of the pile.

For a long time I thought about the state you were in. There was this need to understand, to know you are safe, wherever you are. You used to get lost in the tiny supermarkets of Tura. How would you travel across the zita riticuli, across time, through worm holes and beyond? How was I to know if you reached safely to the Haydes where eternal sunshine and Spring abound?

Today I think I have the answer.

Dead Feathers, Dead Fathers

It is all a myth. This death, dying and the ideas of heaven. Mere words to add glamour to the ordinariness of our lives. Our past is a lie, and so is our present. The future alone holds hope because the future alone can make things right. Maybe we have not come from the stars that exploded billions of years ago, after all. Perhaps, by dying today we are gradually becoming those stars that are waiting to explode in our past.

We are no ordinary pile - of feathers and fathers, we can withhold the power to make our past all right, set the stars ablaze and, in a puff, explode into pools of fire to breathe life back into this planet. We hold the universe under our wings, and today I join you.