it's best not to ask, it's best not to know
i think of children with some permutation of this disease, hairless and sick in beds somewhere near. i think of men facing certain death in war and marching in to battle, of the generations of women who wasted and died without aid through the hell of childbirth. i think of field hospitals in the civil war, of whiskey amputations, think of the plague, of bloody eyed marburg victims, of any illness before the twentieth century.
i think of terrifying triumphs of the human will to live, horror show self mutilations for survival, of anyone and everyone stronger, braver, or sicker than myself. i close my eyes and think of shrapnel, of the gas blind stumbling through conflict areas, of radiation poisoning, of car accidents, of murder victims and the tortured. i think of everyone for whom dying peacefully and surrounded by loved ones was never ever possible, people of whom it could not be said they never suffered or that they almost looked like they were sleeping.
lie back and think of the alamo, darling.
i think of terrifying triumphs of the human will to live, horror show self mutilations for survival, of anyone and everyone stronger, braver, or sicker than myself. i close my eyes and think of shrapnel, of the gas blind stumbling through conflict areas, of radiation poisoning, of car accidents, of murder victims and the tortured. i think of everyone for whom dying peacefully and surrounded by loved ones was never ever possible, people of whom it could not be said they never suffered or that they almost looked like they were sleeping.
lie back and think of the alamo, darling.