Kushal Haran Mr. Nguyen AP Lang 9/2/13 The Corpse It is a desolate wasteland.

A barren, expansive land decorated by tombstones under the darkness of the cloudy night sky. The wind howls like a wolf as it gently blows the leaves off the trees of the sleeping forest enveloping the graveyard. But that is irrelevant to you. You stand on the outskirts near the old, flimsy, wooden fence that separated the necropolis from the "outside" gazing at the silhouette of a being mounted in the distance. The inanimate silhouette seems to stare back as the gap between you and it closes. You are in front of it. The mounted body face to face with you and nothing else surrounding. As the seemingly spontaneous fog clears the silhouette is revealed by the luminescent moon; just then the ludic wind whispers in your ear all the while its cold hands stabs you. You're paralyzed as you witness the cadaver in front of you gaping back. You, the corpse, and nothing else, everything fades to black. Black...blank... Part two is the corpse. The corpse. The corpse is that innocent outlaw holding you hostage with its captivating gaze. In front of you are the remains of some man or woman rotting away into the void that is the reality that shrouds you, that chokes you. The acrid smell of decay pierces your nose making you nauseous. The carcass stands proud while the wounds and puss covering it calcify, sedimenting the materiality of the body. The skin chips away and the color of the body turns muddy green as the blood halts throughout the body. The

corpse is the refuse of the human soul still decomposing, decaying, dying. The waste that is the cadaver unnerves you, makes you anxious, fretful. It disgusts you like the taste of the skin of the milk. It is that feeling of a perpetual revulsion. That abhorrent feeling takes hold of you and jettisons you into a vortex of repulsion. It is a dark revolt of being that apprehends you and jails you. Skip...flash...black. It is a mirror. The corpse stares at you exactly as you gawk at it forming a mirror. That thought, that is what destroys you. That corpse is no different than you, it is merely a reminder of the materiality of you, of your subjectivity, of your soul. You are not immortal. You are decaying. You are decomposing. You are dying and nothing makes you different. You are the same as all other bodies constantly in the process of dying; you are insignificant. The corpse is not an object, for you are not object, but it is not subject because it is dead rather it is abject. That abjection seizes and abases you. The corpse is murdering you and you need to flee. You attempt to find your escape route and scan the area to find the horrific, black void that encompasses you. You are trapped to this degradation and there is no way out; the world shakes tumbling around you as you anxiously try to hold on to reality but to no avail as that reality instantaneously crumbles, the cemetery, the forest, the gate, the night, the moon all crumble and all that is left is the corpse and you and that quickly vanishes too. Black... jolt... you wake up. You are in that same familiar bed surround by the same familiar room with the same familiar items as that alarm clock wakes you up. Disoriented from the experience that was another nightmare you wake up to wash your face and get ready for the same monotonous day that constitutes your life and you stare in the mirror. All you can see is the corpse... nothing new.