One could always imagine that one's life, though smoldering parts, might be undamaged in the west. We also serve who live with grace. If there had been more time, or less, it all would have been easier. If its an hour one can say what one likes. If it's a year, one can be what one is like. A day is exactly the wrong lenght of time to be oneself in, don't you think? In the end I suppose we lay flowers on a grave because we cannot lay ourselves on it. The dead were filthy, half buried, sometimes barely distinguishable from the mud or the rubble they lay in. One didn't understand, until one had seen a great many bodies, the unconscious effort that one must be making every minute simply to keep one's hands and face and clothes clean. The world's surfaces were so filthy that the living touched them only with the tips of their fingers and the soles of their shoes. How grubby it was to die, to give up making that effort. Life took longer to reassemble than it did to blow apart, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be lovely, providing that one remembered to go for country walks, and to tune the wireless to music.
~ Chris Cleave
