SWADDLE

FLIGHT

In 1930s Detroit, a man named Joseph Figlock was to become an amazing figure in a young (and, apparently, incredibly careless) mother’s life. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother’s baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby’s fall was broken and Figlock and the baby were unharmed. A year later, the same baby fell from the same window, again falling onto Mr. Figlock as he was passing beneath. Once again, both of them survived the event.

CURSE

In 1893, Henry Ziegland ended a relationship with his girlfriend. She didn’t take it so well and ended up killing herself. Her brother blamed him for her death and went to Henry’s house and tried to shoot him. Henry was lucky and the bullet only grazed his cheek and embedded itself inside a tree nearby. In 1913, Henry decided to use dynamite to uproot a tree in his garden. The explosion propelled the embedded bullet from the tree straight into Henry’s head, killing him on the spot.

MORTEM

"And in the dark, the town is yours and you are the town’s, and together you sleep like the dead, like the very stones in your north field. There is no life here but the slow death of days, and so when the evil falls on the town, its coming seems almost preordained, sweet and morphic. It is almost as though the town knows the evil was coming and the shape it would take."

Image courtesy of CVLT Nation.

MEMENTO MORI: PART V

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov'd, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well. 

- Lord Byron, And Thou Art Dead, As Young And Fair

MEMENTO MORI: PART IV

Cruel Death! The young leaves droop and languish;
Evening's gentle air may still restore -
No! the morning sunshine mocks my anguish -
Time, for me, must never blossom more!
- Emily Bronte

MEMENTO MORI: PART III

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality
- Emily Dickinson

MEMENTO MORI: PART II

DEATH, to the dead for evermore
A King, a God, the last, the best of friends -
Whene'er this mortal journey ends
Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;
Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore
Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn
Disturbs the eternal sleep,
But in the stillness far withdrawn
Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep. 
- Robert Louis Stevenson

MEMENTO MORI: PART I

Life is short, and shortly it will end;
Death comes quickly and respects no one,
Death destroys everything and takes pity on no one.
To death we are hastening, let us refrain from sinning.


If you do not turn back and become like a child,
And change your life for the better,
You will not be able to enter, blessed, the Kingdom of God.
To death we are hastening, let us refrain from sinning.