Why

Why?

It is one of the first things we wonder. For some, the only thing we ever really say. But there is never an answer. We think there is, or should be, but all we have is this life, and then death. It's all we know we have, all we really get. Everything else is guesswork, desperation, faith.

We pray when the dead are dying, when we're in pain, when hope has fled us, when we have nothing else -- prayer is what is left when there are no other options., no other changes, no other hope left to us. That's the only time faith comes in. We only mean then when they're all we have left, when everything else has failed us and we can only hope for miracles or gifts, or rewards.

We offer anything, then. And those we care for still die. Nothing changes that. Not magic, not will, not power. In the end, our god fail us as much as everything else does. We end, and we die, and our story is over. no matter our goals, hopes, desires, dreams -- in the end it all comes to naught, nothing, finished.

We finally learn that our desires cannot change the ways things are. But this is not the worst thing, no, not at all. Even outliving those you love is not that. But part of it is in there. They die, and we go on. They die, and the world goes on. We who have lost so much, been so deeply shattered, waken to realize it means nothing. The world continues as it was. As if nothing happened.

So, to the why, there is nothing. We will die as well, and the world will continue. People wll get up, and go to work, and laugh and love and hate, and we will be only the past, and they will all look to the future. We will learn that the world doesn't break when we do, how insignificant we truly are.

And I wonder, walking, if old people wonder this, with eyes still clear and hands close to the triggers of bombs. If they think they would matter, if it ended with a bang and not a whimper. If they ask why, and all they get back is

"Why not?"