elimination
Chapter Eight

I stare off into space as Bump Nose goes on and on about moral standards in Ancient Egypt. “In Ancient Egyptian society morality was personified by the goddess Ma’at, representing truth, order and cosmic balance. People were expected to instill discipline into their daily lives for the greater good and provide for those who could not provide for themselves. Of course all of this was done under the heinous misconception that in doing so individuals would be rewarded with an idyllic afterlife.” I stare out the window and watch as snow dances to the ground. I love watching snow fall, free and beautiful. There is nothing anyone can do to control it and I would like to think that in revels in that fact, asserting its independence in each spin and loop of its decent. My textbook says the snow used to be whiter a thousand years ago. Everything used to be whiter a thousand years ago, everything but people’s teeth.

I can’t help but feel bad for the Ancient Egyptians. They had such a fear of oblivion that they devoted their lives to living in accordance with the mandates of a made up goddess. I suppose in a way they were happy though; their belief system gave them ready-made answers to their most daunting questions. In fact, part of me wishes I could do that. Part of me wishes I could believe in some kind of happy ending and calmly shrug it off, as the seconds of my life escape, one after another. Every once in awhile I replace myself lying awake at night staring off into the blackness in the realization that one day that blackness is all I will see, one day maybe soon. Yes, I wish I could believe.

“As Egypt neared its tipping point, the concepts of Ma’at began to disappear,. Corruption was seen more so as an inevitable fact, than a preventable vice. It had become an incurable evil.” I’m not paying attention to Bump Nose. Snow is truly immortal. The same snow that falls today has been falling since the beginning of time, even the same atoms that I am composed of have existed since the beginning of time. Within the law of conservation of matter we are never truly destroyed. We have been stardust for billions of years, and we will still all be stardust billions of years from now. I suppose it’s not ideal, but it makes me feel like I am connected to something bigger than I am. It gives me something I can believe in.