THE FILES OF THE DEAD

THE FILES OF THE DEAD

[INTRO]

Before Paris showed me bones,

the hospital showed me files.

Brown folders.

Names.

Dates.

Decline.

Then the porter came.

[VERSE]

The track opens where the ward light hums low, night shift thin and the monitors glow, body in the bed where the numbers move slow, files on the side like a life in code,

brown folder heavy with the years inside, decades of entries where the body declined, hypertension first, then the sugar line, medication increased while the clock kept time,

fifties, sixties, clinics and letters, bloods getting worse and the scans getting better, doctors wrote notes like weather on weather, little storms gathering under one cover,

the patient had laughed in supermarkets surely, argued at tables, watched football early, worried about bills and the world moving blurry, never saw death writing slowly and firmly,

a file is a biography nobody wanted, not romance, not glory, just mortality charted, appointments, admissions, the frail heart started, then final admission where the old road darkened,

I held those papers with a clinical manner, name band checked under fluorescent grammar, observations falling in a quiet little stanza, oxygen numbers and the family getting sadder,

machines breathed rhythm with a plastic patience, pumps spoke softly through medication, nurses moved careful through the night’s rotation, mercy in gloves beside deterioration,

then the room changed, not dramatic or famous, no soundtrack swelling, no audience nameless, just the monitor telling what the body could not frame us, and the silence arrived like the final translator,

doctor came in with the formal conclusion, time written down with professional precision, death verified under human supervision, but the soul had stepped past every earthly decision,

final offices, water and towel, folding the sheet where the world goes quiet, trained hands gentle but the heart felt violent, because death is not normal though the ward stays silent,

I wrapped the body with a care that felt ancient, almost like liturgy inside clinical patience, dignity offered where strength had been vacant, but dignity cannot make the dead awaken,

the file stayed near, thick with its witness, all those years of frailty and sickness, history written in medical inches, one life narrowing toward paper and stillness,

then the porter came with a trolley in waiting, corridor lights cold, rubber wheels shaking, body and folder both silently travelling, flesh and record going down together fading,

that image stayed sharp in the back of my spirit, the notes went with the dead like the story was finished, birth dates, diagnoses, signatures, limits, a whole human life in a folder of minutes,

and Paris came later with the files removed, no names on the skulls, no charts to prove, no family at bedside, no ward to move through, just millions of bones where the dead had accrued,

the rich became bones, the poor became bones, the clever became bones, the beautiful bones, the patient with files, the king with his throne, all passed beneath cities that pretend they are home,

that is the sermon the hospital whispered, every pulse borrowed, every breath gifted, every chart closing, every body shifted, every file preaching that the days are numbered,

modern man says do not be morbid, keep death polite and the language corporate, hide the grave under forms and storage, but Scripture speaks plain where the world gets cautious,

it is appointed once for a man to die, then judgement opens where the books do not lie, not just biology under hospital light, but soul before God when the time arrives,

your life has records no ward can contain, words that you spoke, thoughts you entertained, lusts you defended, mercy you feigned, sins dressed tidy with a respectable name,

the hospital file can miss what the Lord sees, the secret motives, the unbent knees, the hidden cruelty, the private disease, the proud little self that refused to plead,

what shall it profit if the whole world is gained, if the final file closes and the soul stays chained, if the doctors did all and the family remained, but the heart met God with unforgiven blame,

you need more than a chart with improvement noted, more than a discharge letter cleanly quoted, more than more years with the old sin loaded, more than a body kept briefly floating,

you need blood that speaks better than Abel, mercy more solid than the ward’s steel table, a Priest more faithful than the strongest label, a Resurrection when the grave looks stable,

Christ entered the ward of human dying, flesh of our flesh under sorrow and crying, not distant from pain, not coldly advising, but God in the body where mortality was striking,

He touched the sick and the fever departed, called the dead where the mourners had started, wept at a tomb with a holy heart guarded, then walked to His Cross where the judgement got hardest,

real wood, real nails, real blood from the Saviour, real wrath carried for rebel behaviour, real holy Son in the place of the traitor, real curse broken by the true Liberator,

He died for our sins according to Scripture, was buried in silence, stone like a fixture, disciples scattered, hope losing its picture, death posed proud like the file had a victor,

but third day morning broke the record of death, Christ rose bodily with immortal breath, grave lost title, hell lost threat, and mercy walked out where the guards still slept,

so when the file closes, do not sleep unready, when the pulse slows down and the room turns heavy, when the porter is called and the footsteps are steady, remember the risen Christ is the only One ready,

not your file, not your chart, not your scans, not your meds, not your notes, not your name band, not your hospital bed, not your years, not your work, not the tears that were shed,

only Jesus Christ can save.

Lord over death certificates, catacombs, morgues, final offices, files and dust.

[OUTRO]

The porter came.

The file followed.

The body went down.

But Christ rose.

Prepare to meet thy God.

Repent
and believe the Gospel.