The James Bond movie franchise had its 50th anniversary recently. Despite many themes of death in their titles, say, ‘You Only Live Twice’, ‘Live & Let Die’, ‘A View To A Kill’, ‘The Living Daylights’, License To Kill’, ‘Tomorrow...

Super Short Story (198): Kid Part 1: It was terrible… the passing of his kid… Suddenly, he woke up. It was just a dream. He doesn’t have a kid in real life. Part 2: It was terrible… the passing of her kid… Suddenly, she woke up. It was just a dream. Her kid in...

We are born empty-handed come, and we die empty-handed. Yet, most of us are born with clenched fists, and some die with them too. Perhaps this symbolises clinging from life to life, our futile grasping at slipping...

Super Short Story (183): Deathday As his Mother passed away on his birthday, this day will thereafter be remembered as her death anniversary too, probably more so than his birthday. He reckons he will never celebrate his birthday again, because how do you celebrate and ‘mourn’ at...

Super Short Story (181): Undying Love She heard a line from a song that went ‘I’m in love with a dying man.’ It struck her that it’s true for her. After all, who isn’t dying? The question is, with the inevitable approach of death, will her love by undying, or will...

Super Short Story (178): Crabs Every time he walks by the seafood section of the supermarket, he would take a peek at the ice box where live tied up crabs are put, unsure whether he wishes it is filled or empty… If it is empty, it means all present before were bought and probably killed...

Super Short Story (148): Doomsday He noticed that the obituary pages were just as filled on the days before, on and after the so-called doomsday. Every day is someone’s...

If he does not work towards a greater goal that transcends life and death, that makes the world a better place, with the betterment outliving himself, he would be doing nothing but working towards the deadend of death, a be-all and end-all, for nothing much at...

He doesn’t even want his loved ones to know he is dying of a rare terminal illness, but he forgot that his loved ones are also dying of a common terminal disease called ‘life’, which can equally prove fatal suddenly, that it is perhaps better for all to be reminded to...

They say when you see yourself, it is time to die. But there is another way to see yourself, and another way to die - when you see yourself so clearly by reflection, that you decide to change for the better - to be reborn, without actual...

Forgetting that death is eventual, that it can come all too sudden, he was contented that he was ‘completely healed’, that he had come across a ‘masterful’ healer, who could not even heal his own terminal ‘illness’ of...

From the movie ‘Peepli (Live)’, which is social tragedy of about how a poor farmer was tempted to kill himself to secure government funds for his family. Natha: If I will not be alive then, what is the use for respect? Budhia: If you don’t do anything for your family, then...

From the 1957 movie ‘The River’directed by Jean Renoir - Same But Different Nan: Why can’t you be good like Elizabeth? Harriet: It’s easy for her to be good because she is good. Comments: We all have Buddha-Nature, the potential to be pure within. In this sense, it is...

Emma: (During year one of their meeting, after which they part for a year) Whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve had today. And if we should bump into each other some time in the future, well that’s fine too. We’ll be friends. Dexter: Yeah, right. One day we might meet One day...

The Japanese movie ‘Helen the Baby Fox’ is surprisingly more life-affirming than expected, bearing in mind that ‘School Days with a Pig’ from the same country kind of romanticised and rationalised death in terms of slaughter:...

Those attached to living well, who have aversion to death, might forget that death is always eventual, that death can be more sudden than expected, that dying well is just as important, so as to have a better rebirth. Those attached to dying well, who have aversion to life, might forget that...

You cry when you are born. Because returning painfully is suffering. How much more tears? You cry when you are here. Because living unhappily is suffering. How much more tears? You cry when you are dying. Because leaving fearfully is suffering. How much more tears? (The irony? Your parents...

‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’, simply put, is an ode to life. An ode to living itself: He who is not busy being born is busy dying. - Bob Dylan: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) This is like another way of saying this: Heedfulness is the deathless...

A blog reader urgently wanted to use the second poem at http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/the-famous-funeral-poem for a real funeral, and asked for the author. Wondering if the idea was called off because it wasn’t from someone famous and deceased… It’s interesting how...

While hosting a game of setting deadlines for our bucket lists, one participant listed becoming a vegan in a few months’ time, and another wrote ‘to be nicer to my parents’, with no fixed deadline, because it seems strange to fix one for such a ‘task’. I next...