Thoughts about death from "The Satanic Verses" by Salmon Rushdie:
When the bad news telegram arrived… the tone was pretty unvarnished: FATHER GOING FAST + IF DESIROUS OF SEEING BETTER MOVE IT. He discovered to his surprise that, after a lifetime of tangled relationships with his father, after long years of crossed wires and “irrevocable sunderings,” he was once again capable of an uncomplicated reaction. Simply, overwhelmingly, it was imperative that he reach Bombay before Changez left it for good.
This had always been a weighty man, but now he was a living lunch for the advancing cancer cells…
After his father’s death and seeing “a pair of emptied shoes” Salahuddin says, Yes, this looked like the start of a new phase in which the world would be solid and real and in which there was no longer the broad figure of a parent standing between himself and the inevitability of the grave. An orphaned life, like Muhammad’s; like everyone’s…
When the bad news telegram arrived… the tone was pretty unvarnished: FATHER GOING FAST + IF DESIROUS OF SEEING BETTER MOVE IT. He discovered to his surprise that, after a lifetime of tangled relationships with his father, after long years of crossed wires and “irrevocable sunderings,” he was once again capable of an uncomplicated reaction. Simply, overwhelmingly, it was imperative that he reach Bombay before Changez left it for good.
This had always been a weighty man, but now he was a living lunch for the advancing cancer cells…
After his father’s death and seeing “a pair of emptied shoes” Salahuddin says, Yes, this looked like the start of a new phase in which the world would be solid and real and in which there was no longer the broad figure of a parent standing between himself and the inevitability of the grave. An orphaned life, like Muhammad’s; like everyone’s…