Freeze tag

I am accustomed to looking for fore shadowing in books, so why not life?  What is it in life that is a sign of things to come? Knowing this would be like looking into a crystal ball, or reading someone's palm.  It's what fortune tellers know that the rest of us don't see.

Mythology is full of people who received subtle warnings they ignored.   Now they are frozen as statues, or pinned to rocks to be picked at forever, not to die, just to suffer.  That's the worst thing of all, the final straw, the last play for power, threatening eternal damnation.

As long as we are moving in this life there is the possibility that things will change, but what happens when we become statues; when rigidity starts to set in and new ways or ideas become unthinkable?

This is the foreshadowing that says the end is coming, at least the end of things as we know them.  The world slowly morphs into a strange, unknowable, unbearable place.  The clothes are different, the music is different, the machines become incomprehensible enemies. People start disappearing. The good old days take on an unnatural rosy glow that never existed.  I suppose it prepares us for preferring to get out rather than dealing with this discomfort forever.

But I also wonder if being able to escape the statue makers will open up new possibilities for longer more fulfilling lives.