Writtten with inspiration from Hamlet’s “To be or not to be…” soliloquy in Act 3 Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Death.
The undiscovered country from
whose bourn no traveler returns,
there are no geographical markers
of such a famed place.
(though many a man has seeked to explore it)
It puzzles the mind to a point at which we wonder
whether this fantastical place of being is, in fact,
a place –
or is it rather a lack of being? For in the moment our hearts
cease to beat our minds go with it too.
(to a land no soul has ventured back from)
Is death a place our pilgrim souls go when our bodies
cannot follow their wispy tails of memory?
Or is it merely the silence that follows a dead man’s heartbeat?
If there was nothing – no land to return to – the knowledge of
an unknown infinity would surely make cowards of us all.
As such, death will forever be the undiscovered country
whose borders continue to be lost.