phosphate of calcium

"What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough."

- Complicite, A Disappearing Number






I have never been more affected by a play, I don't think, in my life of reading plays, marveling at the language, feeling, as I do toward real people, frustration, sympathy, and inspiration. I certainly have never been so emotionally drained after reading a play. I'm not tired, but I feel a sense of finality. Not all the loose ends have been tied up, but I just....

I had tears in my eyes at those last words. It's not a thing I like to think about, death. But to me, that love story, the one we caught so briefly in A Disappearing Number was more potent than many I have seen today. Scientists know that science is elegant, poetic, and beautiful, but it's hard to express that fact. I think, for true love to be spoken in the words of science speaks to that love, love of science, love of humanity, love of partner.