THE HIDDEN PIECES RULE

In honor of the release of my first book, Your Limit is Home, I decided to post one of my short stories here.

Enjoy.

ALLIGHT

THE HIDDEN PIECES RULE

It is hard to lie to yourself.

No, that is a lie.

It is very easy.

Do you ever worry about the impact of your death after you are gone?

Why do you worry?

Don’t you know you will be dead?

You will be dead.

You will be dead.

You will be dead.

It is worth repeating so that you understand it.

Do you understand what death is?

There are many definitions of it.

I can see how you might be confused.

You might have heard that death is the end of all things.

This is not true.

It is true.

It is confusing.

How to simplify it…

I know.

You are now a rabbit.

Your ears are quite long.

Your tail is pleasantly plump.

You hop.

You eat grass.

Your home is a cold/warm hole in the ground.

You mate.

You make babies.

Your babies grow.

Your babies leave you.

Your grown babies are hopping, eating, mating.

They do not think of you.

Your body ages very quickly.

It does not seem so to you though.

Your fur changes color.

One day you crawl into your cold/warm hole.

You never crawl out of this hole again.

You are a rabbit, remember?

There are no funerals for rabbits.

The cold/warm hole eats your body.

Your body disappears.

All that encompassed the physical definition of you as a rabbit is gone.

Death is the end of things, for you.

Do you see the words, for you in the sentence above?

Please pay attention.

These two words (for you) are very important.

As rabbit you mistakenly thought your body was you.

Your body is not you.

Silly rabbit.

A lot of rabbits make this mistake.

It is a very common mistake.

Like humans, many rabbits get confused when it comes to death.

Let’s back track a little.

It might help clear up some of the confusion.

Do you remember some of the things you did as a rabbit.

You hopped, and ate, and made baby rabbits.

Though you did not know it at the time inside each of these rabbit habits you left a piece of yourself.

Did you know this?

You did not?

It is ok, don’t be worried.

It was a very small piece.

You did not notice it.

You did not miss it.

Leaving these pieces behind did not hurt you in anyway.

Each piece had a little bit of your rabbit-ness in it.

Every blade of grass was affected by your chew.

Here is the interesting thing though.

One of the quiet laws that govern everything states that every blade of grass, every hole, every baby bunny you give a piece of you to must forget that it has a piece of you inside of it.

This seems like an unfair rule, I know.

But just look at it from the perspective of the universe: if you spent all your time thinking about all of the parts of other rabbits that are inside of you then you might forget to enjoy your time as a rabbit.

Your time as a rabbit is very short.

Knowing there are millions of other rabbits inside of you would be very distracting.

That is why the universe made the “hidden pieces” rule.

Technically, I am not supposed to even talk about the “hidden pieces” but this one time it should be okay.

So remember earlier when we said that when the hole ate your rabbit body that was the end of all things for you?

That was true.

But it is also true that in a million (this is a low estimate) ways now that your body is gone, you are now a part of, well everything really.

Ok, you are a human again.

Welcome back!

You are watching TV.

The news is on.

On the news they are talking about a famous movie star who died.

You liked this movie star.

You watched all of their movies.

They made you laugh and cry and feel everything a human can feel.

You really liked this person.

Now they are dead.

You feel sad about it.

The newscast ends.

You turn off the TV.

You go to sleep.

In the morning you do not think about the movie star again.

That is how the “hidden pieces” rule works.

The movie star is now inside of you so deep you don’t think about them.

Even so, this now dead movie star hidden deep in your atoms helps make your life your own.

This same thing will happen to you too.

The physical definition of your body will be erased.

You are gone.

Death is the end of all things, for you.

Ah! You caught the, for you, this time didn’t you?

Now you know you are not your body.

This is what death is.

Death is forgetting that we remember.

Don’t worry about dying.

Certainly, your body will be forgotten.

But you will remain.