If at the end of all this, there is anything left that could be called you to remember this, if at the end of all this, standing alone, naked with uplifted palms, gazing skyward at the migrating flocks overhead, If at the end of all this, we are left with any semblance of cognizance,

If the brain functions at all, and is not reduced to a feeble vegetable, clotted with sluggish blood and black nerve choked purple ganglions, scorched pathways of the backfiring medulla, drooling down his stubble covered chin, strapped like a cabbage to a wheelchair, being spoon fed oatmeal and puréed bananas through a funnel by a malevolent nurse who finds you disgusting.

If at the end of all this, when our ears sag to our stooped shoulders and the cartilage in our nose continues to grow with pores so large they hold bacterial cultures and small philodendrons, If at the end of all this when our sunken cheeks are hung with colonies of sleeping bats, our teeth are missing, and the face has been folded like a tattered blanket, whatever fine hair still languishes in liver spots is as white as silk but will only grow from moles, our neck, creased like Egyptian parchment, covered with spiderwebs, a deflated bag hanging like a rag on a knobby stick.

If at the end of all this, there is anything left of us to remember who we were, who we are, what we did in this world, what mercy we extended, what evil we perpetrated, what joy we shared, what pain we inflicted, our heroism, our cowardess, those we seduced, manipulated, destroyed, murdered, redeemed, assisted and died for.

If at the end of all this, when there is nobody else left in this world to remember this, I will still be there, at the end of all this, to remember you.

Written to me by my friend, Richard Diran, while I was dieing ... 1996
(also see 'The vanishing tribes of Burma' written by Rick)