Wednesday 26 June 2002

Pic of the day: For lack of the real thing on such short notice, this cathedral is from the City of Camelot, in the online game Dark Age of Camelot. Just for atmosphere. Doesn't the Lightwalker look like a man who has lost more than he can ever find again? I think so, surrounded by so much emptiness.

Death do them part?

The old cathedral lights are low;
she and I, we'd often go there
to admire, and sometimes kneel in prayer.
Lords and ladies lie in stone,
hand in hand from long ago,
and though their hands are cold, they'll love forever ...

Chris de Burgh, Lonely Sky.

***

In the news today ... in Arendal, another city on the south coast of Norway, an 81 year old man drove to the graveyard to lay down flower on the family graves. While he was there, his car started to roll down the sloping ground and hit him. He was found dead a while later.

And I cannot make up my mind whether to pity or envy him. I cannot make up my mind whether this was grotesque or touching. After all, we're all going to die – and probably not much later than that. Me, when I die, it will most likely be while doing something stupid and pointless, and my cadaver will be burnt with as little ceremony as the law allows, whereupon I will be forgotten except perhaps for some people who wonder briefly why I've stopped updating all of a sudden. (That is, if the black holes of CERN don't get us first...)

I think, perhaps, he didn't get so raw a deal. Though he'd probably prefer to live. Don't we all? But in the end we die anyway. At least he loved someone till death and beyond. While I still wonder if I even know what love is, the way humans use the word, or ever will understand this need of theirs.

... and though their hands are cold, they'll love forever ...