A Cleaner Flame

I read the dead man’s e-mail messages again yesterday. I wondered exactly what it was that I was looking at. They had none of the immediacy or intimacy of a physical artifact. A letter or a postcard would have given me a direct connection back to a time when his warm hands had held the paper, pressed ink onto its surface. Instead, a collection of ones and zeroes formed a different kind of memento mori: a purer, more abstract preservation of thoughts, ideas and words.
My thoughts turned to myself. When I die – for I am now simply too old to keep using “if” to start that sentence, as though youthful hope itself could hold back the tide of time – what will I leave behind? What do these words mean without a “me” behind them? Are they my best chance at immortality, or merely the dry ashes of a fire that burns brightly and will ultimately consume itself? If so, why bother at all? Better, maybe, to burn with a cleaner flame that leaves no residue.