One thing about being 55: at times I say to myself, "5 years ago I was 50" - and I feel elevated; other times I think to myself, "in 5 years I'll be 60." Thirty-five years ago I was 20, in 35 more years I'll be 90. 2050 - what a time that will be: vase galactic empires, computers the size of paramecia containing human consciousnesses and blotting out nebulae in vast swarms, the arrival of the eschaton - not as you think, but in the form of some unknown kindness.
and just like that we're almost to Halloween : this year I'm a skeleton covered with an arrangement of carbon-based compounds forming organs out of cells - circulating blood and evacuating waste, consuming oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. Though composed of carbon like a vein of coal or a decaying tree trunk, I am animated - almost like one of those speaking stones the Gospels refer to (or those dancing rocks on Galaxy Quest). Walking past me, you may be startled as if a granite obelisk or field of flowers spoke to you. What horror is humanity, you might gasp - we emerge from inside our females, and, after a while, burrow our way into the ground - as if all a magical prank.
