‘Life is a Lived Experience’

 

One gloomy morning in November,  a mongrel got run over by a pick- up on the highway.  Perhaps it was crossing to the other side to hunt for breakfast; perhaps he was returning home after a rendezvous;  maybe he was going over to say hi to his long lost buddy.  We’ll never know. He’s dead now.

On that morning,  his brains were splattered on the tarmac.  The rest of his body was intact. Surprisingly,  there was very little blood on the scene.

I stared at the mess for a minute then hurried off to work. (Typical Kenyan)

That evening when I returned,  I found someone had taken his body and laid it by the bushes on the side of the road.

***

I’ve been passing by the carcass every day since the incident.  I saw the body begin to swell a week later. I  suffered through the horrid stench as the maggots and flies found a home in the rotting flesh. I witnessed the once supple flesh begin to wither away slowly.

Would anyone remember how loud his barks were?  How fast he would run? How his brown and black coat of fur shone in the morning sun?

***

Yesterday as I did my daily pilgrimage to the site,  there was nothing left  but dark gooey stuff and a few bones.  No fur,  no flesh,  no skin. It’s almost as if the ground had absorbed him.

Faded.

“Nothing puts things into clearer perspective than death”

I don’t know why I kept passing near the carcass all those days.  Even when I had a million other routes,  I kept checking, morning and evening.  It was like a preview of how my own body would go down.

***

Your flesh will decompose, and soon you will be nothing but a  distant memory. Only a few will remember the sound of your laughter,  the beauty you exuded, the things you once loved.

“Life is a lived experience”

You will die.  We will all die.  That’s certain.  The when and the how is what we’re unsure of.

When you know death is lurking around the corner,  waiting to embrace you,  then you must live.  By all means.

***

Stop postponing the things that bring you pleasure and happiness.  Stop trying to control life so much.  Let it carry you, freely and abundantly. Love.

When you’re all stiff and bloated,  the sacrifices you made for people,  for your job etc won’t matter if you weren’t happy when you still breathed.

Did you live life?

Are you alive or dead inside?

***
Are you a walking corpse among the living?