Anatomy

Though I was once a man, now all that remains of me is dust, and a stray rib bone. I am, as you can surmise, dead, and buried. Several years ago, in fact. I don't know exactly how many, but I know they’ve been plenty. It takes time to turn into dust. My death was a rather stupid one, looking back. I worked on ships, you see, and I was going to jump unto a dingy, to get back to land. I want that far out, just enough. I stuck my leg out, and I fell. The world kind of spun on me. I fell into the water, which was looking rather black that day. I remember it was cold. I must’ve hit my head. Next thing I know, I’m laying in some room. I was warm, because there was canvas sheet on top of me. I drearily realized I was dead, and the shock wasn't really there in the way you'd expect. Maybe it was the fact my heart was no longer pumping, so no adrenaline or whatever. Anyway, I lay there, awake but not, there but not, and noticed I maintained some feeling in my body, in the nerves somehow, like a sort of tingly sensation. As if I was straining to feel, and, well, losing the struggle. Then somehow came, and I was moved, I'm not sure how, into an adjoining room. I was laid on a cold wooden table, and men crowded around me. One man began to speak to the audience, and I realized he must be the oft commented Dr. Tulp. And I, an honorary, and unnoticed, member of his mostly captive audience. Unfortunately my mind tuned the beginning conference out and it thought of rotting meat instead and wondered if the maggots and bugs were coming for my soon to be rotting corpse. Sounds morbid, yes, but I knew then, somehow, that I was just part of a grand design, drawn by a mater’s hand. My death would feed the worms, they would in turn make the soil fertile, the soil would bear grass, grass feed cows, cows would feed humans, and the circle would start again. It was beautiful, and I had to die to fully understand. Funny, really, if you think about it. Then Tulp and his spectators moved closer and I saw, or felt I saw, like out of the corner of my eye, Tulp move towards my side, and felt air in or on my hand, but softly, like breath. I don’t know what he did; only the tingly ness was fading. I know I seem dreadfully aware for a dead man, but memory is all I have. I seem to have gotten it back in full force after I died, perhaps because my mind was no longer preoccupied with issues of the present, or fearing the hypothetical future. I was no more, so memory was the only place I could live. I remember things no I’d forgotten, like the ay my daughter first lock of hair smelt, or the exact color of the sky on my wedding day. To be honest, I lost all track of Tulp’s lesson, and my burial. I was there, but not. I existed, and did not. Then I as in a cold coffin. the last ghost of feeling I had was a coldness on my face that may have been a worm, but I’m not certain. With the remnants of consciousness that I do, did, will, have, I wondered whether there was a heaven or hell. Was I being punished by this sor tof here-and-not state, or were we all? Or is this what heaven looks like? Now I wonder, if this I the end for all, are we all sinners? Or are we simply more magical than we believe? I do not know. But I do know, that my final time of rest is coming and I will finally be no more than bone dust. Hopefully.

This is supposed to be the corpse’s P.O.V in the Rembrandt painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. I’ve changed a bunch of the facts and I’ve operated outside many of the constraints, but still, I think I’ve rendered a likable dead body. Here is the wikipedia entry; which includes an image of the painting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_Lesson_of_Dr._Nicolaes_Tulp