I think skeletons are scary. Always have. I remember one episode of Scooby Doo scaring the hell out of me when I was a kid once because the bad guy was a skeleton. Sea monsters and ghost miners didn’t faze me, but that skeleton sure spooked me. “Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Dream Warrior” had a skeletal Freddy that I thought was one of the best effects ever for a walking/fighting skeleton. (I’m sure that if I saw it today it would pale in comparison to my memories.) Then “Army of Darkness” had an army of the things, but they still looked like puppets. I always wondered why skeletons were never given enough of an effort in movies. “Pirates of the Caribbean” is probably the best example of well-done skeletons in a movie.

I remember the scene in “The Ring” when the main characters fell into the well – it horrified me. Not so much the fact that there was an evil ghost girl chasing them, or that they’d fallen a few dozen feet into a dark well with little chance of escape, but the knowledge that somewhere in the black waters was a skeletal corpse positively shook me.

Before we went on our (last) family vacation to Florida, Vickie bought me a few t-shirts, all adorned with skeletons and skulls. I’m not a fan of t-shirts, haven’t been since I hit my mid-twenties. I saw them as a sort of childish look that people should grow out of; especially since almost all t-shirts were for bands or brands and I kind of saw that as a commercial shill. So I behaved somewhat dejected at them, but to be honest I really love those shirts. Vickie said once that if she had her way her kids would wear skulls and bones on all their clothes, and that really appeals to me. If I had the budget to go out and buy a bunch of clothes for style and panache, I’m sure all of mine would be adorned similarly. As it stands, I’m lucky if I can buy a new pair of shoes once a year and rely mostly on Christmas gifts for my outfits, which pretty much means that my yearly supply of new clothing is meant for work. Polos and slacks all year long are my statements of style.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about skeletons. I was thinking about them today during the car ride to work (specifically, what I’d say in this post) when Alice in Chain’s “Them Bones” came on the radio – I took it as providence.

When I get down to thinking about it, or assigning meaning to it, I think I’m fascinated in them because of what they represent. Most scary movies involving the walking dead use zombies, which don’t interest me that much. But bones, or a nearly completely masticated skeleton, have a message. These are a very real representation of what we will all become. Literally, they are people who’ve been stripped, removed of everything that made them unique and turned into the core of a person (again, quite literally). To me, they also represent being forgotten. A skeleton is someone who’s been dead long enough that the world has moved on without them. It’s a very sad, romantic and tragic idea – one day we won’t matter anymore, and very few will even be recalled in history.

Some might consider it a warning sign: that someone who’s lost so very much in his life and is going through depression is now writing about death and skulls. Allow me to elevate the level of humor with the following.

I’m scared of dying alone. I’m scared of being forgotten. To watch me exit the shower is an entertaining thing indeed. See, I don’t want to die in the bathroom – it’s my number one fear. Most are afraid of spiders or snakes or heights, but not me. No, I have a nearly petrifying fear of slipping in the bathroom and cracking my skull, only to be found later naked and spoiled on the linoleum. Back in Morning View, our bathroom had carpet. I can’t express how much of a relief it was to step out of the shower onto the sure and comforting grip of carpet beneath my wet feet. My current bathroom has linoleum. I turn off the water, drip for a minute, grab the towel and dry my arms, then hair (the first of many passes through the hair), then belly, back and legs. The feet are tricky. They must be dried before I can step onto the linoleum, but in order to do so I must lift one foot up, placing all of my (considerable) weight onto one slippery foot. The towel rod provides some support, but it’s almost to the point that I will sit down to dry my feet. I step very slowly from the shower stall, always holding onto something to steady myself, until I reach the safety zone of my bedroom’s carpet. Yes, Elvis died in the bathroom, but at least he was sitting on the toilet with most of his clothes on and was probably lucky enough to avoid the post-mortem spoiling because he was already on the toilet.

I don’t want to die alone. I don’t want to live alone to avoid the possibility of dying alone. If I could have everything in the bathroom padded with Nerf I would gladly do it.

There, humor inserted, fear-mongering allayed.

So, yeah, were I younger and less concerned with a professional appearance, this site would likely be all kinds of adorned with skulls. But again, we hit one of my many hypocrisies – I hate goth but love the style. I used to wear vampire fangs out to clubs so very many years ago, and now shudder at the thought of a thirty-something doing it. But I can’t deny that it appeals to me, wrapping myself in dark, mourning colors and good old fashioned suicidal tendencies (to this day, one of my favorite bands). If Eldon and Josh and I ever get around to actually writing some songs, I’m sure my contributions will be dark and brooding and fixated on the old, forgotten and angry bones.