After Death

Death

I can feel the cells of my body beginning to break apart. They are dying.
Each laboured breath becomes heavier and more shallow. The water in
my body starts to drain. I can feel the warmth flow from each part of
me towards the base of my spine. Each second that passes my
consciousness is fading. I can feel it, myself, flowing through my
brain, out of my mind and into the air around me. It is growing
colder. The four great elements of my body are collapsing into each
other. A slow sting begins to rise within my as if from a great
distance. Burning, writhing, spreading across every organ, every
tissue, I can feel its path before it surrounds my soul and buries it
in a fire of torment. My senses are numbed now, my body is dead. But
I must press on.

Air

Suddenly, I am vast beyond imagining. I cannot see but I can feel. I feel
myself swelling and twisting. Writhing against an unknown presence
that guides me ever onward towards parts unknown in an endless
circle. With each new breath taken around me I can feel myself
shrink. With each new exhale I grow and swell again. Rushing around.
The world is my body now. Life is held within my grasp. I am merciful
to many and cruel to few. I can feel my life beginning to choke. A
foreign body entwines with mine. Burning through. A caustic wind
flows within me and burns a hole through my being. I grow sicker and
darker. My life force begins to wan once more. Faster and faster,
this toxic body pushes on and forces me to crumble. My life is
draining and all others with me. I feel old. Beyond imagining; old.
Time does not exist for me here and I feel at peace. There is no time
for the winds of the world.

Water

I can feel my blood flowing downwards. Seeping further and further into the
earth around my cold body. I creep with it. Gently caressing stones
and shells. Bark and beasts. Then a current takes me. Crashing.
Flooding. Breaking forwards through all in my path until I reach a
plain of serenity. A simple stillness that melts onwards to eternity.
I can hear the seconds passing. Life is echoing through me. I can
feel it now. Erupting forth from inside me. Then a darkness comes. I
can swept this way and that. My body crashing around and hurled
against rocks and sand and ships. My might cannot be constrained for
long. I break out. Flooding everywhere I can feel life within my
fingers again. Slowly slipping through my icy grasp I can feel it no
longer. The poison has followed me here. The decaying is worse. A
decrepit body burgeons my new found strength and I can no longer
fight. My might begins to fade as I battle a losing war. The toxic
pieces flow around me and smother the life between my fingers.

Earth

As my body breaks down, as the cells of my skin and bone and tissue and
sinew decay into the earth. A new sense of self is established. A
solid sense. Something warm and cold. Something near and far. I am
broad and deep and bountiful once more. Life is no longer inside me
but above and below. My being is a cradle for existence. I can feel
the energy flowing through and around me as I gently, slowly sway and
fall. Rising in many places and falling nearby. The soft sweeping
gestures shudder and crack. Pain floods through my veins and all
around me. I can feel more life around me now. Seeping into every
crack and pore. It is warm and nourishing. A dark sense creeps upon
me. Slowly at first, but increasing steadily then growing more and
more with each day. A sickness penetrates my hard shell and eats away
at my core. Day by day I can feel death encroaching. The cracks grow
larger, rent open by claws of iron and steel. The sickness pours in
around me. Choking out all signs of life.

Star

As my consciousness slowly drifts away into the cold vacuous expanse before
me, light erupts all around in a blinding flash. Objects appear, hazy
and far away at first, but growing closer and closer with each beat
of my heart. Each flash of life within ignites a fire of extreme
proportions all around me. An intense heat writhes and weaves within
me and around me. I can see it, falling and rising in waves. Arcing
around and through me. Giant peaks and troughs swell and burst about
my eyes lighting every corner of the universe. Each separate part
collapses and reforms over and over. Twisting and turning and
entwining with each other in a liquid motion of life and heat and
energy. There is no sickness here. Below I can see the sickness
spreading on a small rock between my hands. I can hear its heartbeat
fading between the mighty pulses of my own. It is dying.

Time has become distinct again. I can sense each second as if it were
created from within me. All about me every planet begins to fade. I
can feel myself pulling towards them all, slowly at first but growing
faster and faster, they spin about me and stand in place
simultaneously. Time has grown short. I can sense the end arriving.
Something cold and dark and finite approaches in the distance. All
manner of life is flooding towards me in a single wave of
intoxicating energy, rushing forward to meet me on the horizon of a
new dawn. It keeps growing faster and faster, swirling now into a
vortex of amethyst and emerald and sapphire and diamond, melting
together until another flash of blinding light fills the universe.
Then there was nothing.