The night was a corpse. So still, one may have been inclined to check its pulse, panicky fingers fumbling at its wrist in search of a heart beat. Or to check for even the shallowest breath from its lifeless, cold lips. Or to, at the very least, kick its foot and wait for a response. But none would come. No, the night could not have been more still – for nothing is as still as death.
But, it's only inevitable that tranquillity eventually turns to commotion. Even in death, calm ultimately moves over for disturbance. And when this disturbance begins, it builds so easily. Easier than school of piranha swimming downstream, easier than a vulture flying with the wind – it comes easily.
After death, nothing can stop the rot, the decomposition. One dies, and in that instant, there is a coming apart, a breaking down into simpler forms of matter. Things begin to move. Autolysis: one's internal enzymes and chemicals begin to break down one's own tissues. Putrefaction: bacteria consume. Then the scavengers come. There's an unbuilding, a dispersal, and a scattering amongst the still living, reborn.
Daylight does come.
