In the bark of the tree, like the skin of a human, you see scars. Where there has been a wound that has healed. Grown back stronger yet in a sense less resilient. The tissue can't stretch. It cracks.
I've been thinking that I would rather be eaten by a pack of wolves than die of cancer. Think of it, that last month at least in chronic pain after all the chemo and radiotherapy. The sickness and weakness across months and years before the final illness. Invasive surgery. Recovery and rehabilitation and relapse. And so expensive. So much effort and so much in the way of resources to extend the life of a pointless person who will die at some time at any rate. And then the body burnt or buried, not even properly paid back to the earth.
There's a point - and not too far down the line - where individualism and individual rights merge into utter egoism. Narcissism. How can I believe myself so important that the community should spend so much time and money to let me live six or eight months? How can I think my dead body is a sacred object to be treated with reverence while other animals, living and breathing, are treated like meat?
Why should we humans have so many damn rights and give everyone else none? Or the barest minimum?
It shocks me.
And think of the planet. Viruses and bacteria are smart enough to evolve before they kill all their hosts - they evolve so as not to destroy the body that sustains them. Unless it's easy-peasy to get to another body to start all over again.
Hello? There is no other planet.
Hello? We'll have died out before we can get to another planet.
Oh goodbye. Send in the wolves.
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