Lost Boys

From Dave Eggers' novel, What Is the What. The book is based on the experiences of a Sudanese man (one of the famous "Lost Boys of Sudan") who walked for months to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. He describes his time working as a "burial boy" in the Ethiopian refugee camp...

"When a boy would not rouse himself from bed, would refuse food, or fail to recognize his name, his friends would wrap him in a blanket and bring him to the clinic [Zone Eight].... Zone Eight became the last place one went on this earth.... Zone Eight was the end of ends.

'Burying Zone Eights became my job. With five other boys, we buried five to ten bodies a week. We took the same parts of the bodies each time; each time, I was the carrier of the deceased's left foot."

There's also this simple passage, describing the typical death of a boy while walking through the desert...

"By the next afternoon, we had seen eight more dead boys along the path, those from groups ahead of ours, and we added three more of our own. On that day and in the days to come, when a boy was going to die, he would first stop talking. His throat would be too dry and to speak required too much energy. Then his eyes would sink deeper, circled in ever-darker shadows. He would no longer answer to his name. His walk would slow, his feet shuffling, and he would be among the boys who would rest longer. Eventually a dying boy would find a tree, and he would sit against the tree and fall asleep. When his head touched the tree, the life in him would fall away and his flesh would return to the earth."

The Nine Cemetery Contemplations

"There is a passage in the Buddhist Sutra on Mindfulness called the Nine Cemetery Contemplations. Apprentice monks are instructed to meditate on a series of decomposing bodies in the charnel ground, starting with a body 'swollen and blue and festering,' progressing to one 'being eaten by . . . different kinds of worms,' and moving on to a skeleton, 'without flesh and blood, held together by the tendons.' The monks were told to keep meditating until they were calm and a smile appeared on their faces."

The different stages of decomposition:
1) Autolysis (self-digestion) - Enzymes operate unchecked and begin eating through the cell structure, allowing liquid inside to leak out.
leading to....
a) "skin sloughage" or "gloving", where the liquid from the cells gets between the layers of skin and loosens it.
b) somewhere around this time maggots start doing their work.
2) Putrefaction and bloating - bacteria starts breaking down and liquifying tissue, producing gas
which gets trapped in the popular feeding ground areas of the mouth, the abdomen and the genitalia. Eventually something bursts, like the intestinal lining.
3) Dissolution- the body collapses into itself and seeps into the ground (or the coffin-lining). The digestive organs, lungs, and brain goes first. Sometimes the skin mummifies before it can be eaten by corpse-friendly beetles. It all depends on the weather. And packaging.

-info from "Stiff" by Mary Roach

D'une jeune fille...

(Inspired by Dina's recounting of a visit to a cemetery) - I visited Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris with my aunt some five-odd years ago. Interesting thing - my aunt doesn't speak a lick of English, and it turns out that the best place to visit when you can't communicate verbally is a cemetery.



So, in search of an image of my favorite statue, which I could not find, I found this image. Simple, as if this was the opening to a story, as if there is something else behind the tombstone besides a dead body. Amusement ride maybe? Old film in sepia tones? Water-puppetry? What if graves and tombs were meant to be opened and explored, and they contained dioramas or random objects or books or anything that the families conspire, and the bodies were cremated and done away with. It would make more sense, seeing that graves and tombs, dedications and statues are really for the living. Please, can my grave be a trunk of dress-up clothes?

Mort Couture

Wanna go out in style? Are you a material girl (or boy) who is worried about how you are going to die in a material world? Have we got a body basket for you! Presenting the design award-winning Cocoon by the German company Uono. Sleek, eco-friendly (it's made of a soybean resin), and available in 14 colours.

But don't listen to me talk about, here's what the makers have to say:

The model COCOON combines aesthetics and functional simplicity. Its organic shape reminds us of a timeless sculpture. As cocoon the coffin symbolizes a feeling of security and care as well as the crossing to something transcendental. The individual making of every COCOON enables a high degree of perfection which is expressed through the high-gloss finished varnish, the extendable handles of stainless steel and the noble lining.

A "noble lining?" Anyway, for more: August 2006 New York Times article about Uono.

Asleep or Dead?

Asleep, but spooky picture of me that Dina took. At first it really creeped me out. But then i got used to looking at it. I keep it saved in my phone, and look at it once in a while. To see what i would look like dead. Also, kind of helps get used to the idea in a way.

Non-Sensical

A little bitty from Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"

(from a passage in which the main character finds himself descending into Death)

"She turned to the path ahead of him, pointed to the three ways he could go. 'Okay,' she said. 'One way will make you wise. One way will make you whole. And one way will kill you.'

'I'm already dead, I think,' said Shadow. 'I died on the tree.'

'There's dead,' she said, 'and there's dead, and there's dead. It's a relative thing.'"


and a few pages later....

"'You people talk about the living and the dead as if they were two mutually exclusive categories. As if you cannot have a river that is also a road, or a song that is also a color.'"

I love the metaphors in the last sentence, though I don't think metaphor is the correct term for them - because it would be a metaphor if it wasn't possible. And I like to think of the possibility of the senses becoming interchanged when one's body begins to shut down. It happens during seizures, does it not (I will look that up). But regardless, to hear color, or to sense weight with your vision, would make dying a joyful process. I think. At least for me. I'd be having a blast. Gasping for breath I'd say, "Hey rewind. One more time. Can I do that again?"

The Peace Box

I may eventually write a blog that is worthy of this new finding, but right now I will just let you see for yourself. And remember to watch the video. And don't know HOW this helps sell their product.


"Major economic and environmental changes are reshaping our society with profound repercussions all over the world, there have been few new products in the field of funeral services.

Naturally our customers have not escaped these developments. This is why our environment-friendly coffin called the PeaceBox represents a breakthrough for funeral directors in terms of material."

The Peace Box