Small-Scale Apocalypse: The end of your life...and then what?

Written By Buddy! Magazine

Jackie Yuan (ISB G11)

Jackie delineates the stages of a human’s body biological decay that follows their immediate death. Specifically, looking into what happens in the immediate 12 hours in terms of time range.

You die… then what?

A famous Chinese proverb goes like this:

“Life is a walking dream. Death is going home.”

This concept of death being the nail in the coffin of one’s life is not uncommon for humans; death is an inevitable end for everyone. Death is often portrayed in films as simply a person closing their eyes and ceasing to breathe, but that is actually only the beginning of a complicated and fascinating biological process where a series of transformations happen. This article will reveal to you the exact biological process of body decay that occurs when an individual is defined as biologically dead, aka when the brain has been deprived of oxygen and blood long enough that all their cells begin to die.

This is Dodo, a fictional humanoid who retains all human biological properties and has hypothetically died a few seconds ago. Dodo now lies in a cell at the morgue and will be later disposed of in nature to slowly decompose.

(Courtesy of National Gallery)

(Courtesy of National Gallery)

Hour One: Dodo’s brain will continue to operate for ten minutes. Preliminary research has concluded that the human brain continues to work for ten minutes after the human’s death. Sadly, we will never know if Dodo’s brain conjures up any thoughts during that period, since all his brain activity exists in the form of indecipherable electrical activity.

On a side note, Dodo will not be able to feel any pain after his death if his cause of death was decapitation as research indicates that the brain loses all sensory awareness and consciousness seconds after the head is chopped off. However, current research fails to determine whether Dodo will still have sensory awareness and consciousness if he died in a more peaceful way.

Then, primary flaccidity occurs and all of Dodo’s body muscles soften; his skin starts sagging, his pupils dilate, his limbs and joints become extremely flexible. Moreover, Dodo will excrete all his waste due to this phenomenon. Dodo’s body will become way softer than before death, and he would be overall very limp. Primary flaccidity is caused by the loss of tension in Dodo’s muscles. Following this sagging, Dodo’s body temperature would start to slowly decrease until it becomes the room temperature or otherwise known as The Death Chill.

(Courtesy of National Gallery)

(Courtesy of National Gallery)

Hour Four: Drastic biological changes would continue to happen to his body. The heart has stopped pumping blood after Dodo’s death. All of his blood would start to slowly accumulate in the parts of his body closest to the ground. This causes a pinkish stain, highly similar to a bruise or a rosy type of blush (romanticized), to occur. This stain is called a postmortem stain.

Rigor mortis also occurs. As you may have guessed from the word “rigor” (originating from ancient latin), this phase would have a lot to do with something getting really stiff. That is precisely the case. Dodo’s body would start to tense up and stiffen due to chemical changes occurring in his muscle fibers. Specifically, ATPs (adenosinetriphosphate) that pump calcium ions back into the sarcoplasmic reticulum of muscle cells start to decrease in number. The ions are not pumped back. Thus, these calcium ions will continue to bind actin and myosin filaments, causing continuous contractions in the muscles. As a whole, the dead human body turns rigid. The process of stiffening begins at the eyelids, to the abdomen, and finally spreads to the fingertips and toes of Dodo.

(Courtesy of Tate)

(Courtesy of Tate)

Dodo will soon undergo another drastic biological change. Secondary flaccidity, involves the shrinking of his skin and the reverse of rigor mortis, will occur at about 36 hours after his death. This phenomenon is caused by the contracting muscles’ breaking down due to decomposition. Only after a while will Dodo really start rotting which will give him a smell of rotten meat or some might say, rotten eggs. At the end of Dodo’s decomposition, he would become a whole with the earth that granted his life.

(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The concept of death is considered differently for each of the many cultures in our world. Catholics believe that death is not the end as the soul separates from the body to face judgement before god, while Buddhists believe that death would ultimately lead to reincarnation where the soul seeks out a new body to live a new life. Apart from the religious values each religion holds about the afterlife, we also see the longing and love humans hold for their deceased loved ones.

One thing remains unchanged; though we all see “death” differently, we will all decay the same way when death gets us.

Buddy! Magazine
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