We, the Thanatonautes “Le secret de la liberté, c'est la librairie.” – Bernard Werber This quote comes from a book I read so long ago I barely remember it, Les Thanatonautes, and it translates to “the secret of freedom, is the bookstore.” An interesting notion right? That freedom is obtained at the price of a paperback book that you found in a small second-hand bookstore hidden away down an alley. But the name of the book itself has always fascinated me, even captivated me in the way a beautiful person strikes an unending envy to be them. I wanted to understand how we could be Thanatonautes, the name itself functioning like ‘astronaut’ but rather than walking amongst the stars you’re dredging through death. Death has always been a part of this world for me, something just out of reach – hushed tones too quiet to hear – so that what we see is never what it means. It never quite makes sense. As a child I wondered what death entailed, for the end is rarely the end and sometimes the beginning isn’t the beginning. If we die does it all cease to exist or does the world keep spinning? I’ve always craved to know death, like people wish to know a lover’s embrace or the gift of childbirth. I wanted the rules to be clear and I wanted them to be just, how naïve a child I was. It’s a pretty dark topic, one that most people shy away from. Maybe it’s too uncomfortable to admit that time is running out and one day we’ll be all out of time – can a person truly starve on time? It’s these sobering thoughts I think that people run from. I guess recently I haven’t had that luxury. This year my Grandmother has been in and out of hospital numerous times and I can see my family living with the sobering reality of the inevitability of what comes next. But that isn’t why I’ve decided to talk about death. You see I had a dream recently – I was walking through a hospital, down a hallway with open doors, the staff were gliding around, entering and leaving rooms and talking in hushed tones. I made it to a room and entered. It was a room for my mother, and she was laid out on the bed – gaunt and tired, red of face and short of breath. She was dying. The scene was horrific. Whilst it was a dream it still pervaded my every thought; I woke up startled and sweat stained in the middle of the night. The rest of those witching hours were spent in a fretful limbo unable to sleep but only half awake. I’ve had dreams and nightmares since I was a kid, and some of them have been far worse and others have been kinder – like feathers on the wind. This dream was different somehow. My mother was rushed to hospital a few days later. I was afraid, I’ll be the first to admit it. I was scared. And here was my mother
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