people
spoke of the living
like they
speak of the dead.
Just
imagine:
people
would go around declaring
how
wonderful everyone else is;
how
kind they are;
how, in
spite perhaps
of
outward appearances,
their
hearts are made of gold.
People
would cherish urns
of
dandruff and nail clippings;
forgive
each other almost anything;
treat
each bad word as sacrilege.
Everyone
would go out of their way
to
attend the birthday parties
of
distant relatives, declaiming it
“the
right thing to do.”
Just
think:
living
itself would become an achievement.
The
news would be a rolling dispatch
of
everyone who made it through the day,
and
when they died
we’d
realise
that they
weren’t that great anyway.
