Death Becomes Her

Now, I don't know about you, but at this time of year — what with mists wreathing the fields, crackling trees setting light to the horizon, pumpkins casting out their cosy glow into filigreed nights — my thoughts naturally turn to

death.

Yes, you heard right, death.  And this makes me unusual, according to a recent survey which decreed that we don't think enough about snuffing it.  Well, it's hard isn't it, what with the school run and inflexible working hours.  Maybe kicking the bucket should be put on the national curriculum along with sex, drugs and internet grooming, just to make sure our kids are properly scared when someone walks behind them, not just a little bit jittery.

Most Beautiful cuddled up beside me in bed yesterday, Sunday mornings designated for Good Conversations.  She gleefully reported that her Halloween pumpkin had developed a nasty flesh-eating disease and was smelling worse than Spider's litter tray that time we left it by the radiator.  Running with the corruption theme, I saw an opportunity to open her mind to contemplations of death outside the stifling scientific restrictions of Silent Witness and CSI.

"Isn't it amazing," I enthused,  "how at the precise moment that spark of life — spirit, soul, whatever you want to call it — leaves our body, the process of putrefaction swings into action?  Our body immediately, without pause for thought, starts decomposing, liquefying into a cellular slurry and a few bits of glistening bone."
Most Beautiful considered this. "And jewellery.  Because that wouldn't rot down.  If you died wearing jewellery.  If say, you collapsed phoning for help and didn't have time to take it off."
"True,"  I concede.
"Pacemakers.  They don't rot down either.  I heard from Emily's dad that some of them are radioactive and could last for centuries, which I don't think very environmentally friendly."  (The thing with Most Beautiful, is that she's nigh on impossible to derail until she reaches what she considers to be her conversational destination.  It can take WEEKS, even without involving National Express.) 

Mark Vernon  (priest, then atheist, then agnostic, now probably Lib-Dem), is quoted in The Times exhorting us to make death our friend and encourage our children to do likewise.  Here is his suggestion on how to achieve this:

"If you have children, get a pet..."

As if it's only a matter of wearying inevitability, that as sure as night follows day the Grim Reaper will come a-calling with his specially adapted hamster-scythe:

With their wavering attention spans children will be BFF with Death in a matter of weeks, bonding over an accident involving stairs and insinuations of hamster-ball tampering.

"I don't believe we've got a spirit, anyway," Most Beautiful continued.
"No?"
"No.  It's just your heart stopping, then the rest of your body can't get oxygen and you die."

Curse you, Gil Grissom, curse you!  *shakes fist at sky*

Most Beautiful, warming to her theme, went on.  "Your heart is like a pumpkin, see?  It reaches its sell-by date and that's it, it stops beating and starts smelling.  The end."

As I say, she's quite difficult to derail...