There he was, laying motionless. A body deserted. A vessel empty. His stillness did nothing but acted as a contrast to how he was before, loud and so full of life – the very definition of Kerouac’s burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
I imagined him breathing in that black suit, his chest moving up and down as air goes in and out of his lungs. But he just froze there – breathless, still and serene like porcelain. I thought about it, of how the end of our life is very much defined and decided by that one final breath. The two ends of the spectrum are so far from each other, yet the gap is so thin. Will you know if that breath is going to be your last? You exhale, and everything just stops.
I had so many things in my mind – the unreplied texts, unanswered calls, the empty promises, things I wanted to say scrambled with memories of lost times, when suddenly my lips whispered a wish: may your soul be one with the universe. My body trembled when I realised that that was it. It’s over, his whole life, just like that. How can life be so grand when death is so trivial? Or am I wrong and it is the other way around?
It was time to say goodbye, and my heart ached. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to hang on to that moment, the fact remains – he had ceased to be.
I rested my hand on the coffin where his body was, took a deep breath and bid my final farewell.
Goodbye, scarecrow. I’ll miss you most of all.
In loving memory ~ Edi Naibaho 1981 – 2016
Delusions of Grandeur 