In Loving Memory

I'm standing on a tomb, my palms are sweaty, and I'm out of breath. I look around and try to find a clue that might give me the reason why I am standing here in the middle of a scary-ass Villa de Leyva cemetery. While my left hand has a tight hold of the rosary that hangs around my neck, my right hand hangs freely by my side. I continue to walk around the churchyard when suddenly I feel my right pinky shoot up with pain. I check my pinky and notice a prickle protruding from the tip and a plump red drop forming where this foreign object is now tightly fastened. At first I feel a mix of anger and pain but then I look down at the ground and see the cause of my pain, a beautiful yellow rose. This rose captivates me. I look around and notice a plenty of similar roses growing randomly around the field. For some reason I feel more calm, not so scared now. I begin to think about all the people that had been buried in this cemetery. What was their childhood like? Were they good husbands? Wives? Brothers? Friends? Standing in this city of the dead, I thought to myself, "Could it be possible that my life will end up summed up on some tomb stone? Everything that makes me me, gone forever..."

Reading A Heart of Darkness I was taken back to this moment in my life. On page 68 Joseph Conrad writes, "We live in a flicker." While these words ring in my head, I think about the burden that lies within them. We are all destined to be ashes. We are destined to be nothing but a memory and a grave. Life as we know it is nothing but a flash of ephemeral brilliance. To Conrad, our lives are only a flicker in what is the storm of history.