Posture of My Death

I

I stood in an open-roofed cell. Surrounded by stone on all sides, its shape that of a sphere. The floor beneath me, too made of stone, completed the sphere. Far from my sides, it only added to the simultaneous feeling of vastness and oppression.

Between myself and the far end of the cell lies an invisible wall. Though not seen, its presence is ever felt. I stand still and silent on one side. My body moves not but an inch. My breaths shallow as they took the utmost care not to be heard.

On the other side of the wall sat a fox. Sitting on its hind legs, it watched my every silent movement. Too seemingly imprisoned, the prints of its daily paces burrowed into the stone as it secretly measured the time of its own captivity.

As I stood, my eyes fixed upon its golden red fur, it would flow back and forth – like a wave in the ocean. I stood at the shadowless hour as the sun beat down from above. Surrounded by nothing but the stone, the trees became memories of tomorrow.

The shadowless hour became the starless night. And once more and again. I had lost count of the years I had stared at the fox. I did nothing but wait, in the posture of my death, not for my end on this Earth, but that of which the gods have destined for me.

My time before this prison is not even but a memory. I awoke in this cell. It is the life I know. I felt tortured. As if my flesh had been torn from my bones. As if I had been crushed and then rebuilt. This prison in which I dared not sit is the prison in which I dared not live. For there, I was in my posture of death.

Driven by the insanity of doing nothing, in an attempt to fill the time, I peered into the darkness which is my mind and tried to remember all that which I knew. I squandered the nights remembering images of the water flowing, though not in a river, but through the air. I thought of the life of a tree. Bursting through the ground, it would rise far above. Then I thought of its death. A slow decay, passed only by the centuries. Thus did I gradually conquer the passing years.

One night, I sensed a change come about my posture. As the fox slept, my eyes moved. Having only seen the fox for so long, they had nearly forgotten the world around me. The rest of my body stayed stiff, careful not to wake the sleeping creature.

In the darkness, my eyes moved down. My clothes barely fit from the years of oppression. Torn and raggedy, not much was left of them. My feet sat swollen in the shoes they had long since overgrown. Yet I dared not move them. For if I did, the invisible wall would fall. The end of times would come and the disasters and calamities would befall the peace.

Approached by the shadowless hour, my eyes returned to the fox. Light now shining, it awoke and returned to its daily routine. Pacing it the holes it had left, only to return to its same spot and stare at me. Yet this time, in the light, it sat down not its spot, but kept walking. I reflected that I was, that myself and this fox – that we were -, and the end of time.

In a movement as slow as the stars through the vastness of the space, my left arm separated itself from my body. Still the fox paced. Another change came upon me as my hand grew heavy. With my eyes, I moved to look. At the end of time, salvation had come.

The fact that I was bounded in a cell did not prevent my hope from harboring. Perhaps I had felt the salvation a thousand times before and I needed only recognize it. The thought gave me spirit, and then filled me a sensation of vertigo. My eyes jolted back up to the fox. Still, it paced.

I moved my arm up again, bending it to face this salvation towards my temple. The recollection of the thousands years passed filled my mind, and in a single movement as swift as the foxes own steps, I pressed my finger in and released the salvation into myself. This was the posture of my death.

My soul was filled with holiness. Though I felt my brain shatter, die I did not. Instead, the thousand years collapsed in on themselves and expanded there again. A flowing black liquid, near smoke-like, escaped from the new hole within my head. It moved like the wind in front of my eyes, and covered all that which I could see.

New visions presented themselves to me in the black. I saw the morning of time. I saw the realm of the world and all its ancient forms. Incorruptible and eternal. I saw the might of the mountain, standing tall above the land. I saw the rivers flow, empires building and the arrangement of all the stars. Cycles began and ended, seemingly centuries passed by.

In their course, mountains were leveled, the rivers flow changed, the empires fell, and the stars altered in their design. The firmament is host to change. In the mountains and the stars, they are individuals, and like all, their lives run out. Still, as mine did too, I sought out more.

I saw the generations of grasses grow, and grains seed, and birds sing, and of men. I saw myself. In almost mirror like state, the liquid smoke swirled around my head, engulfing it in a sphere cage of its own. I saw the years of my life pass by. From the moment of my existence to the moment of my current. I saw all the wrongs in life and the pain they had brought. I saw myself in the posture of my death.

Gradually, the difficulties came not from the visions, but from air growing ever thinner as the liquid solidified more and more. I was tormented less with enigma of my life and more with the growing weight on my shoulders. Still as it grew I saw the infinite concatenation of events. Not through implicit means, but explicit. Not through a linear line, but all simultaneously. I saw no less than the universe and nothing shorter than the sum of all time.

In an instant, the weight of the liquid grew greater than I could carry. I fell back onto the stone. Its impact shattered the liquid, dissipating it into shadowless air. My eyes looked up into the sky above. There I would remain, in the true posture of my death.