The Falling Leaf

The old man lay helplessly in the prison of his death bed, reminiscing of the times he had spent over his long existence. He did not fear death, for all his life he lived by the premise that material things are meaningless. He didn't needlessly spend, instead he charished human contact rather than physical objects. He had a vast collection of both trivial and absolutely meaningful experiences he could play through in his head.

He never feared death because he knew when he went, he would never die alone. He had the memory of his daughter being brought into this world, and of her being untimely wisped away. He had the memory of gazing into his wife's lovely blue eyes, and then years later gazing into the hole where she now resides. The old man had lost many things in his life, but never was his memory fleeding. He held onto those precious moments as momentos to those he'd lost.

As he felt Death's cold grip enbrace him, and he met death with absolute acceptance. He feared not the cold hand of death, for he could feel the warm embrace of his wife as well. However, as he slipped slowly into his endless slumber, he felt her hand grow weaker. He felt the cries of his newborn daughter grow fainter in memory, and even his wife's face grew dim in moments. As he desended slowly into his unwakeing sleep, he eventually forgot even his name. All that remained was a weeping child, being dragged into endless nothingness with no past, present, or future.

They say when you die, you never die alone. You go with those whom you loved and cheerished most whom passed before you. However reality is not so kind, and Death is not so romantic. As you die, and your brain begins to degrade, those memories you hold as a candle to break the heavy darkness begin to dim. If you anticiapted a demon, or some other non-sensical beast of worldly anger and fear, you'll be sadly dissapointed here. Here, only the reality of death is told.

There is no afterlife, no demons, monsters, or angels to guide you blissfully into either eternal happiness or eternal suffering. No, both are more comforting than reality. In reality, as your candle of protective memories fade, you fall victim to the endless darkness. Nothing of whom you once were or any of those comforting memories remain. What remains is much darker than any cryptic creature, what remains is nothingness.

We all die alone, falling into the abyss of nothingness to be greated by only more dispair. Falling like a leaf in the cool Autumn breeze, decaying on the ground as nothing more than a shadow of what was once a gorgeous depiction of life itself. Nothing more, nothing less.