The Long Road

Ben wondered if his body had started to smell. He’d been lying there for so awfully long. He couldn’t move, couldn’t see, odors didn’t register. Was he dead? If he was, how could he ask that question? Somehow, impossibly, on the long road from birth to death, Ben’s transportation stalled.

There was a sudden wave of vibrations; sounds, he assumed, though his eyes didn’t work; perhaps a light clicked on? He knew it was light the way a body can intrinsically tell the difference between day and night. He was picked up and felt the vibrations of movement, maybe a cart transporting him somewhere. Perhaps an industrial-sized incinerator, or the back row of some abandoned farmer’s field?

Another room? Thin deep pressure down his chest. There is no pain, just an awareness of the difference between an intact body and a body gutted from throat to pelvis. There is a change in the center of his body. He has the sense a part of him separating from the rest of him.

A new sensation…heat??? And a feeling of becoming thicker…juicy, if that made any sense. Ben was afraid it might.

Then there was the feeling of being ground up and tossed down a hole into a pit of acid. Ben now knew. He wondered what will happen when he is digested. Will he just disappear? Go to Heaven…or Hell, go from aware to void? What will happen when he completely breaks down into chemicals, molecules, atoms? Will he jusssstttttlldlkdoslllicious meal. She really should do men more. They have such a delightful wild gamey taste. Yummy. She gazed dreamily out the window. It was going to be a beautiful day . . .

She glanced up at the Kit-Cat Klock over the stove. Hokey Smoke, 7:15am! Time to get the twins up for school.