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Empire of the Dead

This is another case of wondering where your body's gonna' go when you die. In the US, it's a safe assumption that when you're buried, other than possibly a slight relocation, you're essentially done, and where you go is where you'll stay. The question that arises is how LONG your body will lie there. Seems odd, but consider this; NOTHING is forever. Maybe in 500 years, they'll have lost the cemetery you were buried in, and someone'll be putting in an MSN shopping mall, and low and behold, your skull comes to the surface.

They'll take off their cybernetic helmets and scratch their heads; wondering what to do with you. Then a Forensic Anthropologist will teleport to the site, look you over, and make a joke like "Alas, poor Bill Gates. I knew him well, Horatio". No one but the nerds would understand it, but considering that's 99% of the population in those days, there will be a lot of guffawing. Then a nervous foreman will come forward with a question. "Uhh, sir? how did THAT get here?"

The F.A., with a slight smirk would say, "Well, my tricorder here reads that it dates back to early 2000 AD. Back then, in the US, they still used to bury dead folks in the ground and give each one a small stone monument, and then forget about 'em, that was JUST before the great Macintosh-IBM war of course."

The foreman would scratch his head again, and ask increduously, "Bury them with a permanent monument for EACH ONE?! What a waste!"

What a waste indeed. To loved ones of the deceased, it may not seem like a waste. Possibly, the grandchildren of the deceased may even feel the same way, but what about great, great, great grandchildren? Some may care, I for one, have no idea where my great-grandparents are buried, and aside from those who have generations living in the same town, I suspect I'm not alone. I know that my mom's parents share a stone that reads "Out of darkness into light", but where? My father's dad died at age 24, I wonder if my dad even knows where he's buried. I know nothing about where my father's mother is buried. Granted, they're buried in England, and I was unable to attend any of their funerals, but I can't be alone in this. So what happens to their graves? Presumably nothing, aside from the graveyard's caretaker. However, once that cemetery is full, unless the cemetery is in the middle of a city or something, it will eventually be overgrown and forgotten. If it's located in the middle of a booming city, it will eventually get relocated, recent history teaches us that it's what to expect.

In Clearwater, Florida, there's a graveyard where generations of poor recordkeeping, and poor folks using only wooden gravemarkers have contributed to a situation, a few years ago, where a new grave was dug almost directly upon an old one that no one knew about. As soon as this was discovered, the cemetery was offically closed to new business, and the city sent in someone to figure out the paperwork. In fact, they sent in John Lewis's sister (some readers may be familiar with John or Sue). (John Lewis was involved in my early band exploits and we shared many mystical interests.--Nolan She discovered that the entire lot that had been slated for the graveyard's expansion, was already full. She had found that this section of the cememtery was called "Pauper's Cemetery", and contained many bodies that weren't even documented anywhere.

So.. the question is, aside from folks who know who the deceased are, who cares that they're there? Once the folks who know about them have also passed on, is there really any reason to continue letting the dead take up that space, or should they be relocated to allow more bodies to move in?

In some cities where the population is high enough, it's illegal to bury folks within the city limits. For example, in Los Angeles (or San Francisco) folks have to go to nearby towns to be buried. The cemeteries are simply full, and land within the city limits is at a premium. In these areas, the problem has been partially dealt with by most folks choosing cremation, but even these take up real estate when stored in urns, or buried.

Urns are an odd matter, and some folks will keep them until the cat knocks them off the shelf and will then resort to vacuuming the remains up, and tossing them.

I know a guy that has his great-grandparent's urns as well as those of his grandparents, his parents, and his wife. Most of the urns were willed to him by his mother, but now he's at a loss for what to do with them all. He is an elderly man with no next of kin, so when he dies, what's gonna' happen with them? Estate Sale? Ebay? Garbage?

In France, they deal with the issue in a slightly different manner. If you're buried in France, you've got five years before they remove your headstone, put down another 4 to 5 feet of earth over you, and voila, the death orchard can receive a new layer of residents. The only time this process is waived is if the land is actually purchased, and this is generally only done for family plots. As time marches on, these too will fill, and/or people will need money, and sell the plot of land, or will fall behind in their taxes. Either way, it's not a permanent fix, and they too, shall be covered over.

The French came around to this way of thinking quite some time ago, when it was noted that they were not burying bodies deep enough. When the coffin gave way to the weight of the earth upon it, the dirt would fall into the coffin, thereby creating a deep depression over the graves themselves. The graves could rarely be made deeper because throughout most of France there's solid bedrock not too far below the ground. The old cemeteries were massive, and had many suken depressions over their graves. In some uncared for places, bones would even become exposed as the dirt would fall in, and/or be washed away.

One such cemetery, called "The Cemetery of the Innocents" was dramatically overcrowded, and in very bad shape. To call it massive would be like saying that the Atlantic Ocean is a fair-sized pond. No one knew what to do with it, but it was in very bad shape, and right in the heart of Paris, France, so SOMETHING had to be done. They decided to go ahead and relocate the bodies into the the French catacombs of Paris. Apparently, they didn't stop there, and decided to relocate several other cemetaries into the catacombs as well.

The French catacombs are now an immense crypt under the city of Paris. There are over 28 miles of underground passageways that are filled, wall to ceiling, with the stacked remains of an estimated 6 million people. The skeletons are all morticed together forming a maze of stacked bones. I've read numerous accountings by the folks that have visited it, and although details vary, some elements seemed constant. After passing under a sign that boldly proclaims the site as "The Empire of the Dead", most visitors find themselves drawn to stacks of skulls nestled within the walls near the entrance. Two accounts noted that they were fascinated by the skulls just sitting there in such close proximity, easily within arm's reach. Whispered noises could be heard, and even ghostly voices can be made out, though once the initial startlement is past, it can be discerned that these ghostly voices are merely the muffled conversations of other visitors on the other side of the wall.

Although mortared in areas, the walls are as thick as the average length of femur (thighbones) which can be seen protruding from both sides of the same wall. The skulls are stacked, back to back, in layers that create a stack of grinning visages on each side of the walls they adorn. Some walls aren't really intact anymore, and closer resemble a pile of mismatched bones, that visitors often pull skulls out of, to startle their friends with. Most accounts mention that to SEE the skulls are one thing, it's another thing entirely to have a real human skull being lobbed to you for you to catch.

To walk through the maze is to literally enter the realm of the dead. The catacombs are even underground, adding to the morbid feeling of actually being entombed beneath the city. Of course the feelings are offset a bit due to the constant load of visitors, but the pervasive feeling of death still surrounds you. Dripping water from some of the tops of the caves, rivulets of water running through eyesockets and puddled water, leave everyone with calcium/bone deposits on their shoes and jeans; A little reminder of where you've been.

As you wander through the twisty maze, some passages have been blocked and you are forced to retrace your steps. Some visitors, upon passing endless rows of the dead, are taken to giving names to some of the remains, along with guesses as to how they died, "There lies John, who was eaten by his unfed turtles while snoozing on his couch."

Oddly, nearly every account I have read has mentioned this phenomenon, and the next one: As the visitors travel down endless corridors of death, they have reported that a certain sense of sentient death that seems to build, and beckons for you to throw down your flesh and join the ranks of the dead. All of the visitors claim that JUST before the exit is reached, they felt as though that they'd better find an exit soon, or be claimed by the collection amassed there.

In fact, portions of the maze have been blocked off by iron bars, due to the fact that at least one visitor actually DID get lost and die down there, ironically, not too far from the exit.

As you look at these bones, there's a tendency to ask yourself if you think these folks knew they were going to die one day, and whether, or not they understood where they'd end up. Be sure to ask yourself if death is in your own future. If it's not, then you have some denial issues, because everyone, even you, will die. In fact, unless you're 10 years old, I can guarantee that you'll be dead before 2100. Myself, I figure that if I die of old age, it'll probably happen in the next 40 - 50 years, because I'm I'm 31 now. That means I stand a pretty good chance of missing 2050.

I call this to your attention because it's something I think we all need to realize and understand. If I set-up a 10 year plan now, to try and save money for retirement, I'll get 30-40 years to "enjoy" it. Some of us are further along than others, and even my estimation of a remaining 40 years is high, considering that I smoke, and have a family medical history that includes cancer, heart defects, alzheimers, and 3 grandparents that died between 70 and 85 years old. So take another 10 years off, and I've got about 20-30 years left to "live my life and fulfill my dreams" etc.

It's not just MY life though (or just yours), there're also the folks I'll be leaving behind to take care of my final arrangements, and I also want to set up some kinda' bonus for them, considering that they put up with my bullshit for all these years. Not to mention wanting to have a really cool epitaph of some kind. Also, in the event I become a statistic, and fall victim to violent crime or accidental death, or whatever, I want to be sure that I'm an organ donor, to kinda' prolong my usefulness, and ensure that some poor sucker out there get's the stuff they need, if they can get it.

You might want to start thinking about the folks you'll one day leave behind with funeral expenses to cover. You might want to take this insight and use it to lay out a will, and/or set up life insurance policies, and/or even take care of your own funeral arrangements. It's entirely likely that such introspection into your own death will begin to depress you, if it hasn't already. However, when your sense of death seems its most acute, and life merely seems to be a race to the finish line, take a look out of a window, and begin to notice the signs of life around you. You'll be amazed at the clarity with which you can view life from that perspective.

It's akin to looking at a bulb and trying to ascertain its brightness while in a fully-lit room, as opposed to a small dark closet. Even a dim light can seem blinding when the room itself is dark, it's all a matter of perspective. This "brush" with death is something our culture desperately needs. Perhaps when folks realize they'll die too one day, they'll also realize that there's life beyond their own. By doing so, maybe they'll learn more compassion for others, when they see that life is the one transitory experience they share with absolutely every other living thing on this planet.

It has to start somewhere, and it has to start now. Knowing you'll die will enrich your life, it simply has to. Everyone reading this article is alive, and as such, has certain things they want to experience, and more importantly, things that they'll never want to experience. When you grasp that concept, and make it your own, you start to see how everything you do on this planet affects everyone else. There are various other conclusions that will come of this type of thinking, but I suppose the biggest one, and the best one is that you realize that your lifespan is indeed limited. The best thing you can do in life is figure out what you want to be doing, and figure out what you need to do to get there. Work on it NOW, and also learn to dismiss the empty things that we THINK we "want to do one day", but really have no inclination to work towards.

A major problem with our society today is that it encourages a false sense of immortality. These days the youth will forever be young, and the elderly have always BEEN the elderly. Those in the middle are starting to question their past decisions, and wondering why they never noticed that they'd be old farts too one day. Unfortunately, I think those in the middle have it the worst: Every year seems shorter than the previous one, and it's harder to get things accomplished, as they feel their bodies growing older, thereby compounding the problems that they've set up for themselves by failing to prepare.

When you're truly elderly, there's a different outlook to life. Your values have changed so dramatically over the years, that it doesn't really matter to you that you can't play basketball anymore, or whatever sport it is that appeals to you. That's why it's called the golden years, you're generally perfectly suited to your new life perspective, and presumably, you're retired, or able to retire. However, retirement isn't something that's handed to you, it's something you have to plan for. Unfortunately, even those that plan for it, risk losing it. My parents are a good example of that: Their nesteggs were blown when medical insurance coverage wasn't enough to cover a sudden battle with cancer that my mom had to go through, 3 times. Just as my mom was ready to go into surgery, my father suddenly discovered that he had a defective heart, and had open-heart surgery to install a plastic valve with a ten year "life" to it. The money flew away faster than it could come in, retirement funds have dried up and now both parents are faced with the prospect of dying behind a desk one day, rather than retiring to follow their own pursuits.

If you figure your life is too messed up, and now too short to bother with, take a look at the dragonfly. The dragonfly is born without a mouth because it's lifespan is too short to bother with eating! How many times will it enjoy the warmth of the sun, or the wonder of the moon? How many times will it ease up its pursuit of the opposite sex in order to experience SOMETHING meaningful before time snuffs out that little spark? It's here long enough to propigate the species, and little more, but have you seen how they'll land on your finger, or on a blade of grass, and just sit there absorbing the rays of the sun? That's where life is. That's what that little insect looks forward to for enjoyment. To the dragonfly, it's entirely worth it.

It's a topic that certainly bears thinking about.

Next Up: The Death Church
Things begin to take on an even more gruesome aspect as the "Death on Display" series moves to corpse displays where the bones are still in the skin... for the most part.

No more sermons, let's get to the meat of the subject.