Destined to be Diamonds
Three or four days ago, I mentioned Flavia de Luce, a character in a novel I'm reading, written by Alan Bradley. One page stopped me in my tracks and I've read it again and again. At the time, I made a mental note, memorizing the page number, so as to return to it and capture a couple of paragraphs where Flavia discusses the end of the world. The imagery resonates with me powerfully. With the death of bearbrat, I went back to these pages in the book, looking at this section again, this time in a different light.
It was a perfect day. Bright prisms of dew glittered like diamonds in the grass, although I knew that, as the day went on, they'd be vaporized by the sun.
Vaporized by the sun! Wasn't that what the universe had in store for all of us? There would come a day when the sun exploded like a red balloon, and everyone on earth would be reduced in less than a camera flash to carbon. Didn't Genesis say as much? 'For dust thou art, and, unto dust shalt thou return." This was far more than dull old theology. It was precise scientific observation! Carbon was the Great Leveler - the Grim Reaper.
Diamonds were nothing more than carbon, but carbon in a crystal lattice that made it the hardest known mineral in nature. That was the way we were all headed. I was sure of it. We were destined to be diamonds!
How exciting it was to think that, long after the world had ended, whatever was left of our bodies would be transformed into a dazzling blizzard of diamond dust, blowing out towards eternity in the red glow of a dying sun.
Perhaps, this selection from "The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag" only brings comfort to me as I ponder Tom's death and my own inevitable demise, but when it's my turn to go, I'd like to think that I'm destined to be a diamond. What say you?
It was a perfect day. Bright prisms of dew glittered like diamonds in the grass, although I knew that, as the day went on, they'd be vaporized by the sun.
Vaporized by the sun! Wasn't that what the universe had in store for all of us? There would come a day when the sun exploded like a red balloon, and everyone on earth would be reduced in less than a camera flash to carbon. Didn't Genesis say as much? 'For dust thou art, and, unto dust shalt thou return." This was far more than dull old theology. It was precise scientific observation! Carbon was the Great Leveler - the Grim Reaper.
Diamonds were nothing more than carbon, but carbon in a crystal lattice that made it the hardest known mineral in nature. That was the way we were all headed. I was sure of it. We were destined to be diamonds!
How exciting it was to think that, long after the world had ended, whatever was left of our bodies would be transformed into a dazzling blizzard of diamond dust, blowing out towards eternity in the red glow of a dying sun.
Perhaps, this selection from "The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag" only brings comfort to me as I ponder Tom's death and my own inevitable demise, but when it's my turn to go, I'd like to think that I'm destined to be a diamond. What say you?