Monday, May 09, 2005

A visit to the plant
(after a gap of nearly a month)

It is unbelievably depressing. There is a stench of death around here. All these empty cubes! People are gone. But they are still here, roaming around, doing things they normally did when they were physically present. This little sign that someone has posted. It says: Nothing perishes, things change, but memories last forever. There is a printed message under the rectangular picture of the plant. The writer says he is leaving the plant with very fond memories--of having worked on projects that he felt so proud to work on, and working with people.
I read the message the second time and the pain with which it was written hits me. It is so overwhelming it gets to my soul. I persuade myself to not read it the third time; just move on. Move, 'cuz your sensitive chords are so easily struck, 'cuz like quicksand others' expressed sorrow can devour you. Move on because death isn't that far, and there is no point in being absorbed in melancholy.