Rose Blumen ~

(Eschran)

I lasted for longer than I expected. Still, it was amusing to die...

I lost my remaining strengths not far the hometown northern bridge. Mother's home.

The river had long dried.

Funnily, this was where and when I met the black one. I had heard of her and now she was real.

Even as much as time goes by and lives changes, there will always be naïve ones. Some needs to learn will always return in cycles. Not all learnt things can become innate.

She played with me kindly, and left me behind when she thought I had died. I thought so too actually.

At least she listened to me talk about you my children, about our optimism and the beauty we begin to see.

For a while, it was nice.

And after, an even smaller leftover of my mind and half-baked sanity, returned to my dead body.

My bones had dried and were turning to dust in the wind. All my skin had already.

Of my squishier parts inside, some little things tried independent life on their own sides. Good luck to them.

And other parts of my wastes and guts managed somehow to keep a hold onto what was left of my mind.

Even though my head itself had dried.

The little impish shape that managed to rise was but a mirage, a last shade that wouldn't go much further as it was.

But I accompanied it nonetheless with care and curiosity.

Outside of heavens, I wondered what else could still await me.

Along this even smaller than a child's body, I left my own dust and bones behind. What had once been my skull was now the apparent size of a house to me. I was the size of a mice maybe. I saw it roll away.

I still left the unnatural instincts express themselves in this impromptu attempt at a new life.

I ran away, looking for food I might maybe smell.

The dreamlike journey never seemed to end.

~

Whatever critter my leftover flesh now was, I followed it like a curious bystander, more than a reincarnated self.

I saw it exhausting itself to cover great distances of lands on instincts quite well defined.

Looking back, now all was dark to me. I couldn't see them anymore.

All I had left to feel warm and bright was my faith in them. I know their hope will live.

I would enjoy this last unexpected ride while it could last meanwhile.

What a dream... It ran so much it grew thinner and lighter, losing even its early tail somewhere.

A bone of a rat I had once eaten might have been funnily my new companion for this lasting while.

It ran over wider lands than I could have when still alive.

I would still be amused if this body could express it. I enjoyed this odd and unexpected twilight.

As this rolling amount of pulsating cells barely bound together continued day and night its quest, I sat back to watch.

What I could still see through its eyes were the ground flowing by, dusts, roots being nibbled, and the night sky.

A continuous stream as it gave everything in its marathon like I did before.

That thing was like my last and unexpected child.

Not only because of the subsequent twilight, the curtains of void from where my perceptions scattered, that continued to shrink on us.

Distance was narrowing. Exhaustion and morbidity growing.

Really I should have been gone when my husband melted, and a part of my sanity definitely has.

Everything since then is like a nice unending dream. An extension to reality or a last swan song for my brain.

The rat still fought until the end, eating whatever came around, drinking as much and running at maximum speed without rest.

Still, it boiled. It depleted not only its chemistry, but also its stability.

I saw it stretching cells and organs beyond what would be reasonable. I saw cells and mitochondria cannibalizing one another in surges of growing anarchy from the stresses.

And then it clung to rocks, trembling, climbing and still carrying me like a ghost over its shoulder.

My words and thoughts could sometimes reach it, but it didn't speak nor think.

I was puzzled as to what frame kept the sculpture of what was left of my mind, since the death of my body.

Maybe that thing's brain was keeping me as well. Maybe it was only in the exotic lights from the sea I could no longer quite perceive.

All my perceptions were eroding steadily.

We were softly melting like sugar into the great coffee of life. And yet, it managed to give me that last sight of a miraculous wonder in this ride. It reached the summit of a hill, beyond which we could now gaze onto the sea.

Its heard had long turned into different nodules over time. Its lungs had collapsed to be replaced by holes through its skin. Maybe the oxygen levels in the air had risen recently, or more likely these pore also held catalysts to carry it which I couldn't see.

I could only stare through its eyes now, to what it could look at.

Everything else was abstract and floating. It had stopped there in its restless track, as if to enjoy this last sight of the sea with me.

So I did, holding this last companion a little more dearly. The reflection of the moon and stars over the peaceful sea were soothing.

The end of the road as myself was kindly there.

What was left of it and me recomposed, crumbling into smaller pieces. As we stained this place and faded from this land, all that would remain from us were now memories.

~