Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

by Cyrus Mistry

glorified untouchable.

swans, elegant in their grief.

People never give a thought to death while there’s still time, I reflected, as the priests droned on.

And when it comes upon you unannounced, there’s shock and disbelief, and a great gnashing of teeth.

stories of the miracles of faith my oxygen.

heart-sinking motif

attending politely

lightest moment of my life.

charge of a planetary configuration

first experience of death, though I was too young to know it by its name.

mending my dislocated priorities.

telepathic complicity of deaf-mute twins.

jumble of my father’s grey beard

end of his endurance.

banquet of the birds.’

Dreams, reality, nightmares—are these, in fact, distinct planes of consciousness?

Or merely different modalities for perceiving the one grand canvas of an indivisible reality?

woolly, prickly mass.

So much for the miracles of faith.

galactic emptiness of my life.

denizens. If there is a god who is responsible for all the profusion of life and locomotion in the universe, then surely that being

has arrived at an advanced stage of senility, I declare, or one of cynical and extreme indifference.

‘Now who would want to steal a corpse? Death has already robbed him of everything he ever owned. Why pillage a pauper?’

It’s a sad irony, I suppose, though pretty amusing as well: vultures have become extinct, even before Parsis could.