And then they all lay down and prepared to die. There is only death, they were told, the one true thing, the one sure end to us all. Let us learn to embrace it, to find in it the solace it provides, to close our eyes a little and feel the trembling darkness, hear its sighs and splashes. Even in this blue paradise, where light has no beginning nor end, let us lie like shoals of bluefish, quiet in the darkness, waiting for the end.
A beautiful piece of prose. Quite a contrast to Dylan Thomas’s view of death and dying — ‘Go not quietly into that dark night…’