#anyway dedicated to @inkskinned because yeah. they're part of this

[cryptidfuckery]

I don't want to become a tree.

I have a fascination with death. Not how it happens, not what happens after. I have a fascination with how death is handled by the ones left living.

I talked at length about it in the Egyptian gallery with you, surrounded by bodies misplaced. "Most of history we learn through the way we treat our dead." Which is true, I think, for the most part.

We have written and oral history. We have the skeletons of buildings and cultures left behind for us to interpret. But before that, before the corpses of civilizations we're still able to uncover, we have our own.

The oldest body ever found is argued to be 230,000 years old. Hundreds of millennia, a culture so lost to time and decay we can't hope to uncover significant artifacts.

Our bodies become the artifact. The way we were buried, where, with what, with who. Was there care put into our final resting spot? Was there effort put into the ends of our lives?

Most often, there was. Our bodies tell our descendants our status. Our injuries. Our community. Our loves.

Perhaps they'll debate. Perhaps they'll misinterpret. But millennia later, your body might tell someone how we lived. How we loved. What we cared about at our core. What we thought would help us after death. What we thought we'd want to continue our comfort. What the living needed to let us pass on from their lives.

You tell me you still think about what I said.

Many people talk about becoming a tree when they pass. It is a beautiful notion, one I've considered. A natural, living reminder of a life lived. A place for their loved ones to share a connection with. In a way, the continuation of a life; albeit in a different form.

But I don't want to become a tree. I'd rather become a forest.

Maybe it's a notion toward the state of our world. The lack of top soil is one of the prevalent factors of our declining environment. The way we've stripped it of the nutrients of decay.

There are ways to decompose naturally. In the ground with nothing but a natural shroud is the oldest and easiest way. A new, human composting method has been created for an urban option when the easiest is unavailable. An alternative to cremating. One that can give back to the earth.

My body might not be one that tells the story of my time alive on this planet. My body might tell a joke, or rest peacefully, or ideally decay away. My DNA will dissolve into nitrogen and an assortment of other elements. I will become no different or better than the dirt that lies around me. What was me will become something else entirely.

I'd rather become the top soil. I'd rather become the forest.