Page 60 - The Truth of the Life of This World

During the first months or years, your grave will be visited frequently.
As time passes, fewer people will come. Decades later, there will be no-
one.
Meanwhile, your immediate family members will experience a different
aspect of your death. At home, your room and bed will be empty. After
the funeral, little of what belongs to you will be kept at home: most of your
clothes, shoes, etc, will be given to those who need them. Your file at the
public registration office will be deleted or archived. During the first years,
some will mourn for you. Yet, time will work against the memories you left
behind. Four or five decades later, there will remain only a few who
remember you. Before long, new generations will come and none of your
generation will exist any longer on earth. Whether you are remembered or
not will be worthless to you.
While all this is taking place in the world, the corpse under the soil
will go through a rapid process of decay. Soon after you are placed in
the grave, the bacteria and insects proliferating in the corpse due to the
absence of oxygen will start to function. The gasses released from these
organisms will inflate the body, starting from the abdomen, altering its
shape and appearance. Bloody froth will pop out the mouth and nose
due to the pressure of gasses on the diaphragm. As corruption proceeds,
body hair, nails, soles, and palms will fall off. Accompanying this outer
alteration in the body, internal organs such as lungs, heart and liver will
also decay. In the meantime, the most horrible scene takes place in the
abdomen, where the skin can no longer bear the pressure of gasses and
suddenly bursts, spreading an unendurably disgusting smell. Starting
from the skull, muscles will detach from their particular places. Skin and
soft tissues will completely disintegrate. The brain will decay and start
looking like clay. This process will go on until the whole body is reduced
to a skeleton.
There is no chance of going back to the old life again. Gathering
around the supper table with family members, socialising or to having an

honourable job will never again be possible.
In short, the "heap of flesh and bones" to which we assign an identity

58 The Weaknesses of Man