No Body, No Nose

Thud.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…why am I counting?

Thud.

Faint, muffled voices pierce the silence somewhere above me. Listen. I need to listen. There goes Meg crying about something again. “Shut up Meg! I’m trying to sleep!” I yell, but the annoyed sound remains stuck in my skull. I order my arms to cover my ears, my lungs to engulf a fresh mouthful of air, but my body remains frozen.

Thud, thud, thud…

The soil keeps hitting wood above me. My body is resting against a suffocating velvet cushion that removes all the space around me. The voices above me begin to fade. Are they leaving? “Wait! Please! I’m here, don’t leave me!” I scream, but they keep fading away. I try to breathe in; I try to punch the wood trapping me inside. My lungs remain collapsed. I can’t feel my arms.

Silence.

Thick pieces of dust sit on my wide-open eyes. The dark around me is closing in. I’m trapped. I can’t blink, can’t breathe, can’t move.

I’m dead.

Five thousand-one hundred- thirty-three, five-thousand-one hundred-thirty-four. How long have I been here? Six feet underground, sealed in a wooden box. There is no escape. The only living creatures around me are slimy, boneless earth worms and some bugs. Both of these life forms used to seem so insignificant, harmless, disgusting. Yet, this second in my mind I can see them coming, writhing around my coffin, ready to dig in, devour the wood, then the expensive velvet cushion and finally, squirm and gnaw into my body.

What was the point of giving a dead body such expensive cushion? Was it to feel as if all these people at my funeral that I barely even knew were properly saying goodbye, to feel as if they cared, loved me enough while I was still alive. I doubt they cared much for my comfort or that I would look dignified, decorous, demure…and I doubt they concerned themselves with thoughts of which material would stop the undignified soil creatures from breaking into my supposedly peaceful resting residence.

As I am being brought back to the chilly memory of the forlorn day that I died, I remember being dropped into the coffin like a sack of potatoes. One’s worth is determined by who is watching, judging, lurking around, if there are no witnesses, humans or one’s body may be treated as if it were a nobody, so I understood.

I spent the whole next day laying on my back while horse flies were crawling all around my face, eyes, lips, on my hands, stomach and legs. I had wanted to swat them away, but even as one managed to inch into my nostril and was creeping up my nose towards brain, I was helpless against it. I have always hated flies. They were always so loud, dirty and annoying.

The lid was closed when the grieving party had left. The coffin was so minuscule, so tight the tip of my nose was pressed against the lid. I do not know how long I’ve been carried towards the cemetery. I wasn’t yet aware of my own passing. Even so, I could feel the heavy footsteps of the men carrying me. Once it stopped, I felt a sickening drop. I was aware I wasn’t falling, I felt as if I were drowning. Once my coffin hit the solid ground, I heard the shrill sound of sharp shovels digging into the dirt heap. Suddenly, earthly clumps started hitting the cover of my casket. And that was when I knew I have faced the so-dreaded end.

“Who are you? A man? A consciousness?” I hear a voice whisper from the deepest, rotten corners of my mind. “Shut up.” I tell it. “No, no, you’re not a human anymore. You’re just an empty space. A part of this decaying coffin.” It mocks me in return.

Five billion eight hundred thousand million, two thousand nine hundred and seventy-four, five billion eight hundred thousand million, two thousand nine hundred and seventy-five…

I can’t tell the time. Has it been a day? A week? I wish I could taste aunt Becky’s pies again. God, I loved her pies. The thought of it alone could warm me up, make me smile. I wrap myself in the cozy memory of the steam rising from the fresh apple pie, my favorite-

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

It’s the church bells announcing three o’clock. When my coffin was being buried, I had heard the bells sing two o’clock. Has it only been an hour? It is difficult to feel the weight and importance of time when I know that generations are going to change generations, years are going to pass, cities are going to crumble above my head and Earth is going to turn into ashes yet through it all I will remain here. Not blinking, not breathing, no longer existing. Nowhere to go, nothing to see, just ethereal darkness.

I lay here. My unblinking eyes staring into the void. My unmoving heart cold and silent.

You see, the brain is a breathtaking machine. Once it realizes the body has ceased to live, move, gather information, once unhearing ears and unblinking eyes pass no more information, it turns inward. It cannot handle the dreadful nothingness of a grave; therefore, it creates fake lives, a sense of time. It portrays a simple room, a bed, a desk, a chair. A phone that doesn’t stop buzzing with texts from people one deems worthy of their time. The brain creates problems and solutions, creates emotions, an imaginary story about a buried man that just seems to never die.

As you breathe, blink, scroll, read, you get distracted. A brain will do anything to make you forget the velvet cushion pressing against your skull.

Seven billion one hundred million thirty thousand five hundred and fifty-four, seven billion one hundred million thirty thousand five hundred and fifty-five.

Don’t try to move your toes.

They won’t listen to you anyway.