A Grave Doubt And Mask Of Strange

Death will be the biggest suprise we will ever have. Or it would be if we were able to feel it when it claims us but I have an ever growing suspicion that we won't. I haven't completely lost faith in the Ever After or Other Side and its more than likely a 'What If?' moment on my behalf, a little shred of doubt nestling into my lobe, but I have to wonder; what if we are being conned? What if there is nothing beyond the coffin lid but grit and maggots?
Fine after we die of course as nothing will matter to nothing but it leaves Life itself whilst we live it a lot harsher.
After such an exciting prelude to Life when we are thrust at birth into a glaring sun, it would be the mightiest of flat tyres to have us suffocate at the End in a pool of black as if being stamped out by a giant exclamation mark. Life has a pretty morbid sense of humour even if nobody is at the celestial steering wheel. The forces that govern black humour seem to fuel themselves, they need no hungover God to fan dark capers.
But I digress. Could it be that we go about our lives under a godless sky only to return as dust on an infinite (empty) bookshelf? Its a miserable thought, and where as millions of atheists have no trouble living under that grey shadow, for someone like myself who has always had a strong faith in 'flowers in the clouds' it is enough to send shivers through my soul. In selfish, ungrateful moods when I despair at the world which my mortal heart is anchored to, images in my minds eye of golden pastures and silver rivers nestled in some eternal valley, are what keeps me ploughing on. The splinters I gather today, the scars and weights that lay heavy, will (I believe) be plucked out and soothed when I teeter on my last foot steps.
And then the doubts arrive like annoying sun showers during a picnic; drenching the mind butterflies, making them difficult to fly in the buttery air. A bruise in the honey pot. This could be all there is to Life, in the here and now or the here after; this might be the only flash of light we get from an eternity of darkness. Terrible thoughts butting into the sunshine until there is nothing for it but to accept that we may get nothing after the rigor mortis is done. And the question begs, why should we? Afterall life isn't a tour of duty that each of us choose to sign up for with promise of rich rewards awaiting us when done.
On days such as these when I find myself hurtling inside an invisible ball toward a pond of mud, it is quite easy to imagine life without its blossoms and ribbons; silent from the trumpets fanfare. I see everything as if in code, things happening for a sensible reason. No magic or mystery, just trees growing because they are trees and razors sharp because they are razors. Im simply following the white lines in the middle of the road with the brakes cut and steering locked. Rolling along, breathing, clicking my heels, more breathing, no excitement at cardboard scenery, breathing becoming shallow, pulling on gin draughts, eager for End, breathing stalls. Dead time.
Without that flower I sometimes catch glimpse of in the crack in the sky, the world goes bland and shatters any sense of adventure into smithereens on the sober marble floor. The fires burn for nothing and inspiration disappears leaving a mass of withered weeds where once was an ocean. A little dramatic maybe but the reader will understand what im saying; without a nod of hope to sun battered horizons and a gate upon death into glorious meadows then I feel my body sag under almost unbearable weight and my skin feels as brittle as egg shells.
It will matter little in death of course but right now, trying to imagine having cold soil as the only shelter from my cadaver, it is a barren scene. Thankfully my notions of eternity behind iron masks do not settle for long inside my head, certainly not long enough to put me into permenant despair. And strange, little things that occur in life which cannot possibly be of this world happen often enough to dispel the scene of ghostly desert plains.
Strange events are what I cling to when I begin to lose vision of my spirit because odd things have no plan or structure, and by breaking the 'normal' rules of life they prove (without doubt in my mind) that something exists in other worlds. Anything weird points to creeps and gods at work. I like to think of it as a leak in the universal cistern, where occasionaly things from some OTHER world spill into ours.
Of course I have no right to demand golden chalices of wine and paradise by the bucketload when I turn DECEASED and neither do I deserve them. Im just another vessel of organs and bone trying to make sense of this pit stop. Only I can't help but think there is more to life than atoms. The force which created mountains and rivers, then decided to chuck in a few ghosts and chupacabras into the mix for good measure, and rest assured the being that thinks like that has left us more than mere coffins as the final Full Stop.