Billetdoux
to the Dead
Are the dead fragments of the living, or the living fragments of the dead?
Tradition: The adventitious handing down of fragments.
How would the living be able to communicate with the dead or the dead with the living if they did not hold something in common? (The voluble traffic in fragments between the living and the dead.)
There are fragments of the dead that continue to speak long after the dead have fallen silent.
Can you hear the voices of the dead haunting the silences between words?
All the fragments the dead have given shall one day be returned.
How could the living speak without the fluttering tongues of the dead?
The unceasing flow of fragments from the mouths of the dead. (Whenever I open my mouth to speak, their tottering Babels fall in.)
What is memory? Why do some fragments survive?
Because there is death, there are fragments. Because there is life, there is a gathering of fragments.
Can the living live without stealing from the dead?
One advantage of the dead … they are beyond believing.
Can we ever repay our debts to the dead? (Eternal installment plan.)
The dead have given up stories … this rare wisdom few of the living will attain.
Why do the passions of the dead outlive, by far, their actions?
In the beginning was the dead, in the living, the end.
The dead have no choice but to entrust themselves to fragments. Isn’t this also true for the living?
Death is a house of fragments.
Who is death to me if I am no-one?
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