Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

Swan Song 255The thought of death has been familiar to me for a long time.From the time that skeletons were carried through the streets ofCalandaduring the Holy Week procession, death has been an integralpart of my life. I've never wished to forget or deny it, but there'snot much to say about it when you're an atheist. When all is saidand done, there's nothing, nothing but decay and the sweetish smellof eternity. (Perhaps I'll be cremated so I can skip all that.) Yet Ican't help wondering how death will come, when it does. Sometimes,just to amuse myself, I conjure up old images of hell. Of course, inthese modern times, the flames and the pitchforks have disappeared,and hell is now only a simple absence of divine light. I see myselffloating in a boundless darkness, my body still intact for the finalresurrection; but suddenly another body bumps into mine. It's aThai who died two thousand years ago falling out of a coconut tree.He floats off into the infernal obscurity and millions of years go by,until I feel another body. This time, it's one of Napoleon's campfollowers. And so it goes, over and over again, as I let myself beswept along for a moment in the harrowing shadows of this postmodernhell.Sometimes I think, the quicker, the better-like the death ofmy friend Max Aub, who died all of a sudden during a card game.But most of the time I prefer a slower death, one that's expected,that will let me revisit my life for a last goodbye. Whenever I leavea place now, a place where I've lived and worked, which has becomea part of me-like Paris, Madrid, Toledo, El Paular, San Josk PumaÃI stop for a moment to say adieu. "Adieu, San Jose," I say aloud."I've had so many happy moments here, and without you my lifewould have been so different. Now I'm going away and I'll never seeyou again, but you'll go on without me." I say goodbye to everything-tothe mountains, the streams, the trees, eventhe frogs.And, of course, irony would have it that I often return to a place I'vealready bid goodbye, but it doesn't matter. When I leave, I just saygoodbye once again.I'd like to die knowing that this time I'm not going to come