Marrow

Date: 27 Jul 1993 00:16:27 GMT
X-Attribution-Dammit:  Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? 

After the flesh, the veins, the muscles, the ligaments, the fat, the organs, and all of the other various glop which every person has and no textbook classifies, after all of that, just when you think you might be done, just when you have stripped it all down to the bone, so to speak, there is the marrow.

Do not be fooled. Bones look so white and final; they are the big friend (the one who has just a little more backbone than you) that you are always taking for granted. But their calcium perfection would not last without the marrow.

Your marrow is your hidden strength. Biotechnology start-ups spend millions, soon billions, to distill its secret essence and sell it to hobbling old ladies. If time were to run backward, marrow would appear to be a viscous acid, eating you away from the inside.

Do not speak ill of your marrow. Could you grow organic crystals out of a phospho-calciumate solution? Could you shape those crystals into scarecrow upon which to hang a man? Your marrow can and does, and will continue doing so days after you are dead, until its nutrient supplies run out, like a liberal government still investing in an infrastructure which is no longer needed.

For after everything else, there is the marrow.