By Darius Rodrigues

Working on a new word for death on Christmas Day

I worry that when my grandchildren die, as they sit in the waiting room all black or all white, instead of being ransacked with hallucinations and fake deities, they will be faced by a world of three-dot buffering signs?Life didn’t fall out of you And make your cheek flatten That was your ability to live In the way that we understand as living If breath and open eyes are what makes the living commonAnd so, you are dead, mother And now I have a dead mother Though I don’t have you So I had a living motherWho I no longer have I lost a living motherPassed away is bullshit People say it because it sounds better than died You could say left us Or joined them We don’t know who they are So we say left us But essentially, your life ended And if it began by being born It ended by being dead Began by becoming Ended by endingBut the opposite of become Is to remain, stagnate (apparently) You stopped becoming, You stopped coming into new beings, You stopped growing, What is the opposite of become? The opposite of grow, evolve Is to cease, to stop You stopped evolving, You stopped growing, You stopped living, living And so, you are dead And so, you can only live if you grow, if you evolve,You had not yet lived,

You became, You lived, or evolved, You stopped being alive, And so you are now dead.YouTo become livingTo shift from not living to livingTo start to be livingYou shifted from living to not living againWhen someone is not yet born, it is a hopeful thingWhat is ‘to end to be living’?Be and comeCome is to arrive to assemble to appearThe most obvious is goShe has becomeWhen she was born, she becameWhen she died,Hold on what is this – goes back to older problem of when she was died? When she was deathed?2015 problem, ask me about it - He lives his deaths he deaths his lives he lives his deaths his deaths he livesComes from the complex – 200 lives, he lives. 200 deaths, he deaths.Half resolved in Dud Blood earlier this year, ask me about it – Like anyone alive, Dr. Faktencheck is also dead.What is the present tense form of dead? He is dead. He is deading. Deathing. When she was deathed, she begoed. No.

She was born, she became, she lived, she dived? DIVED(Before and after state) She was unborn she was dead (The change in state of existence) She became, she begoed (Which way are you heading?) She lived she divedShe was unborn, she became, she lived, she dived, she begoed, she was dead.She was unborn, she became, she lived and she dived, she begoed, she was dead.Is that the right way?All of this red zig zaggy tape makes me feel good like I’m making a difference.She was non. She became. She lived and she dived. She begoed. She was dead.We don't say unborn children are dead do we? That would be hopeless. We don’t tag a not yet human with something are non-existant as that.She was non. She became. She lived and she dived. She begoed. She was non.Surely now you see she is not dead? Sure, she is non. Her living and diving is over. But like an unborn child, she is waiting to become. Like an unborn child, I expect her again, she is in a present tense.I’m not even completely happy with become or bego, it assumes our state of existence, as it is the only one we know, to be the superior one to whatever lies before and after (in the sense that it could just as easily be the other way around – she begoed then she became – here we are at the cyclical). In the same way that she left us or she passed away is arrogant.Still unresolved, but here is an ending. I had a living mother. I do not have a living mother any more but nor do I have a dead one, as I do not have her at all. I have her artefacts, her handwriting and smell, I have what my body and mind holds of her lives and dives. I am fine with that, she believed in a certain kind of magic, and always taught me that red lines were the ones that you should cross.