Ends

Reading one of the stories in Ray Bradbury's We'll Always Have Paris put me in mind of a lot of things, things mainly concerned with endings.  I have to confess I don't understand why he is considered a superb writer, and in my defense I might have been reading him wrong, if that is any defense.  He's okay, but he leaves me hanging, un-proverbially, in the sense of "is that it?"  But there's this particular story (which I didn't finish reading) that launched me into imagining another story (which might turn out to be what he really wrote).

Imagine that when one dies, he can still persist for a time, although apparently not in the same form and hence capacity as was his in this life. I don't refer to religious belief in an afterlife; imagine him knowing simultaneous to his being aware of his continuation, that his continuation chiefly means continuing to generally experience, and experiencing those things he hasn't from before.  Bradbury lists wines unsipped, places not seen, meadows not frolicked in, presumably cows not hugged, delicacies not yet tried, people unapologized to.  You can list the rest, I think.  And this has been going on for as long as man climbed down from trees and started trading fences for tents.  Perhaps that's why most tourist destinations are haunted - the tourists are both alive and dead, creating a neat virtuous cycle of visitations and experiences.

And then, imagine a man, who, upon realizing this, did nothing. He chose to die where he died, and did not experience any of the things he missed out on, from when he was still alive in form.  Left people unapologized to, unforgiven, unvisited; left wines unsipped, delicacies untried, left places unvisited unvisited.  Because he already did.  He chose to end, when he did, because he already did.

And as far as these things go, broiled in the sorry cauldron I call my mind, I am reminded of one of Christopher Carrion's poems in Abarat, written by Clive Barker:

Nothing

 After a battle lasting many ages,
The Devil won,
And he said to God
(who had been his Maker):
"Lord,
We are about to witness the unmaking of
Creation
By my hand.
I would not wish you
to think me cruel,
So I beg you; take three things
from this world before I destroy it.
Three things, and then the rest will be 
wiped away."

 God thought for a little time.
And at last He said:
"No, there is nothing."
The Devil was surprised."
"Not even you, Lord?" he said.
And God said:
"No. Not even me."


And, as far as these things go, in the sorry cauldron I call my mind, I leave alone, and end.

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