The Physics of Sorrow

EPILOGUE

I died (left for Hungary) in late January 1995 as an eighty-two-year-old human being of the male sex. I don’t know the exact date. It’s best to die in the winter, when there’s not much work, so you don’t cause too much trouble.

I died as a fruit fly, at dusk. The sunset of the day (of my life) was beautiful.

I died on December 7, 2058, as a human being of the male sex. I don’t remember anything from that year. That’s why I recalled the year I was born, 1968, day by day.

I have always been dead. And it’s always been dark. If death is darkness and the absence of others.

I haven’t died yet. I’m forthcoming. I am minus three months old. I don’t know how to count that negative time in the womb. It’s dark and cozy here, I’m tied to something that moves. In three months, I’ll pass beyond to the outside. Some call that death birth.

I died on February 1, 2026, as a human being of the male sex. My father was always telling me that it was best to die in winter, I listened to him. I was a veterinarian my whole life. I once went to Finland.

I remember dying as a slug, as a rose bush, a partridge, as Ginkgo biloba, a cloud in June (that memory is brief), a purple autumnal crocus near Halensee, an early-blooming cherry frozen by a late April snow, as snow freezing a hoodwinked cherry tree.

We was.