THE CONSTANT DEGRADATION OF THE DEAD

which of the lessons of death is the one to be learned most and forgotten last just before immortality ... my vote is for indignity ... without indignity any death would be just another express stop on the local line with who knows how many others to follow ... without indignity death could be managed demoted from an angel to an event ... but by accident or long process death will leave a corpse ... a putrefaction bag with an open mouth ... please do someone close the mouth ... indignity means shame but not acculturated shame ... guilt is the cause of this shame ... that no matter whatever we did or can say we are complicit in this event ... you can see it on the face ... the spreading horror of that shame ... it's why we cover the face ... the shame on it embarrasses us ... the pitiful shame of the dead ... it's a debt we cannot satisfy while we still live ... a debt that consciousness is always conscious it cannot pay and makes of conscience herself a debtor always living beyond her means until in the end they have so consumed her that she must stay behind for derision's sake ... swallowing both earth and light till she dulls them both in the constant mire of her shame ... oh but if she could just turn away