There are signs that stand out in the wilderness that is our life. They seem to become more visible as the years roll by. At first they may appear innocuous. You see Floppy Boobs This Way. Checking the boobs out we wander innocently through the border of Gravity Land. First the boobs, then the stomach, descend gradually. Not noticeably but the general direction is inexorable. As you progress into the far-reaches the corners of your mouth turn down, your lips thin and your eyelids droop. Fine!
Excess Hair Over Here trumpets a small sign. This is not just a trap for a balding man but in the fineprint offers the reward of excess nasal hair and ear bushes plus wiry eyebrows. Women of course feel quite safe taking this path. But beware, this entails a land free with its bounty. Whiskers appear on chins that have never before known the touch of a razor. Nasal hair, black nasal hair at that, springs from the once pert little nose. There was also in passing into Excess Hair Land a tiny sign almost unnoticeable, it said Eye Sight Dimming Turn Right. This is clearly unfair! Sight immediately begins to fail as you step near this land. So here is the conundrum, excess hair and failing sight both inhabiting the same area. Unfair I say, but there is of course the invention call the magnifying mirror. A market stall on the left also sells delightful bifocals. People wander the land complaining they are too young to need glasses and only old people grow excess facial hair. There is a reason for this, for as you pass from one land into another you walk under a sprinkle of denial of the inevitable.
The next signpost reads, At Your Age. There is only one way into this land and a maze through which you must pass to find the exit. This is a fascinating land. In it, you find dead ends that say High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol and Late Onset Diabetes – No Application Necessary. In the murky gloom lurk white coated spectres pronouncing the sentences, “No salt, no fat, no sugar, no cheese, (no cheese, you must be kidding.) No Smoking they intone. “Give up everything you know and love, and you will live longer.” Why? This sentence is not only a statement, but a prison term. Life, no release.
The next signpost announces Do-gooder’s Land. To travel this land you must pass along a straight highway stretching into the distance bordered with huge bill boards. Eat Less and Live Longer. Exercise 30 Minutes Every Day. Eat Less Meat and More Vegetables. Aerobic Classes 100 metres on the right. If you don’t use it you will lose it. Free Health Checks. Prostate Examinations – Inevitable. Mammogram Clinic Enter Here. Around each sign phantoms of young women with perky breasts, wearing bikinis or young men with bulging muscles and tight shorts flit like ghosts of yesteryear.
After walking through this uplifting land to a jagged wall that encircles the Depression Can Be Cured sign. After all that has happened in the previous lands this too is inevitable. Giant bottles of coloured pills dot the landscape. Very, very happy people wander zombie-like among its wares. Above the exit of this land a floating signpost dangles tantalizingly just out of sight and reach but with a large arrow pointing down the narrowing path.
You enter the final land. The sign you could not read had said, “Welcome to the Land of Quick Sand – Enter at your own risk. Too late you turn, but as the earth falls away beneath you, a voice intones, “Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives.”
The next sign, should you choose to accept it, reads, THE END.
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