Taupe slab of granite. Sparse. Spare. Gently curved is the headstone like the curve of a sony ericsson. That disturbs me. Someone left some hot pink anemones. I think they were for her. We leave a few smooth stones. We note the stub of a candle someone also left behind.
Nothing is written on the headstone except names and dates. So spartan.
Jean Paul Sartre
1905-1980
Simone de Beauvoir
1908-1986
So minimal that I am disrupted, incensed. I want to scrawl "thank you" in large letters, in thick black paint by her name. Its too bare and I owe a debt. What can I leave there to signify that debt? To pay it out. Unless it comes to me as a gift ... from beyond... a beyond she didn't believe in ... hence the minimalist stone/tone. Her epitaph in her volumes of historic significance. One epitaph on every library's shelf. Second Sex for example. A fine epitaph. What can I leave except two small stones? and would it matter?
"unhappy are the dead ... they die forever without reprieve" (H.C. Manna, p15).
"unhappy are the dead ... they die forever without reprieve" (H.C. Manna, p15).
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