Existence Beyond Mortality

I sit here. Fermenting and stiff. My jaw slack, eyes milky-white and glazed with unfocussed detachment. My spirit lingers somewhere in my peripheral, mocking me in its fleeting existence between the physical and other. Occasionally I feel it dart between stale air, through old damp wood and into fresh, foggy mornings. The low clouds sometimes roll through the cracks between the huge doors and cloak me, drifting to place small beads of water on my brow as if I sweat again in the morning chill. I cannot tell if the colours are muted naturally here or if my perception through filmy eyes cannot draw in enough light anymore to see them truly. Sounds are also muffled but there is not much to make sound here either. There is one small span of the wall I can see and by whatever grace it happens to be a section where one of the slats of wood has fallen away at some point leaving me with a glimpse of the sky. In this fogged hour it is a swirling grey but I have been blessed again with the vision of a red-breasted robin to sing the sunlight through. It is perched and twitching in caffeinated agitation as it calls its grievances to the world. I find myself silently hoping that my other half, my lingering spirit, does not frighten it away by accident; or through some inconsiderate interaction that would surely not impress the tiny bird.

I sway between grateful and exasperated that the two fragments of myself are forced to exist apart, detached but ever present within the vague perimeter of this aging barn. The walls themselves occasionally sigh with disdain towards its constantly irritated inhabitants. I struggle to remember the confines of human perception enough to truly be angered by my predicament, I have moved past that; simply becoming a hollow shell of faint memories of the person I once was. I understand the basic concept of jealousy enough to know that if I had maintained my emotional understanding I would be brought to a rage at how unjust this split between soul and body is. Here I sit, in a perpetual state of decay; unable to move, to feel, to close my damn mouth to stop the flies from making a home within it. Yet there flits my soul, ignorant to my requests to not disturb the bird, dancing in the small stream of light that pours through the crack now. My frustration a dull echo of what I once would have mustered as I stared in empty regret at the bobbing flight of the retreating robin; I could guess at its confusion towards the invisible force that had disturbed it. Had I the connection to my muscles still I would use them all to glare at that unthinking wisp, now mimicking the bobbing flight across the width of the barn.

I have often contemplated what keeps that part of me here, I would have left by now if my body still obeyed my orders but I have been stuck here for however long, disappearing in small sections as the elements or other messengers of nature take me piece by piece to somewhere else. I can understand the boredom and frustration that I remember, reflected within the aimless movements of that misty form of mine but more and more, with every day that passes, I feel the remnants of thought that remain within my flesh form fade. It gets harder to recall things, harder to consider the world outside the small frame of it that I can still see. I am thankful that those windows for my brain still work at all but I can feel the greying edges creeping closer. It is a peaceful fade, a slow descent into nothing. I hope that when it is finally complete the rest of me can move on peacefully, or at least be released from it’s hold on this barn, this place, this body.

~

Time had become irrelevant, colour had faded long ago until sight slipped away and everything was silent. Their last thought was of peace, an acceptance within the total emptiness. Had they still been able to comprehend the affairs of the world they would have been conflicted on their final interactions with the mortal setting. Their body was discovered, long dead and in moderate decay, much to the disturbance of those who bore witness, but as they were laid to final rest under the careful observation of their disembodied form, they were finally set free to wander ever-more. Though every so often a small robin and a playful spirit would flit through that old barn and remember.