from here to eternity

From Here to Eternity

It was a very long road – straight- and ending in a haze,
no place to stop for a drink only one shop selling coffins
and religious stuff. Those who lived in the beginning of
the road had never walked to its misty end, God lived
there it was said, but a keep fit fanatic, confident and
careless, walked the whole length of the road twice a day
got so bored and he hung himself. People who lived at
the beginning of the road and also those in the middle,
looked at each other and made a Gallic shrug.

The widow, a tall lady who played guitar sang folksongs
about saving the rain forest, dyed her hair olive and, bought
a white coffin and painted it green to make her husband’s
dead a celebration to life fell in love with the undertaker,
he too played a musical instrument, accordion; now they
make a good living playing sad music at funerals. As for
the haze, it turned out to come from the public bath, now
closed down, as everybody has their own bathroom, to be
seen near a bathhouse is a mark of disgraceful poverty.