In the reliquary of unlit meridians, where the sun aborts its own ignition, a silhouette practices the craft of vanishing— not death, but the meticulous un-writing of every syllable the body ever was. The cranium, a vault of ossified echo, fractures along fault-lines of forgotten dreams: occipital ridge slumps like a hill eroded by rains that never fell. The meninges, three veils of vigilance, slip from their moorings— pia mater clings longest, a lover’s last fingerprint on the cortex’s cooling skin. Ventricles, those inland seas of thought, drain through foramina of Magendie and Luschka, leaving chalky basins where choroid plexuses once spun their silver cerebrospinal silk. The aqueduct of Sylvius narrows to a pinhole, then seals; no final tide will pass. The thalamus, relay of worlds, shuts its switchboard: no more pain from a stubbed toe, no more pleasure from a whispered name. Hypothalamus, thermostat of hunger and heat, cools to absolute zero; the body forgets it ever craved. Amygdala, twin almonds of fear, shrivel to bitter pits— the last nightmare evaporates like dew on a tongue that no longer tastes. Hippocampus, seahorse of memory, unfurls its curled tail, releases every address, every face, until the past is a map with no legend and no north. Cerebellum, sculptor of balance, loses its chisel; the body, once a dancer, forgets the choreography of standing. Basal ganglia, conductors of intent, lay down their batons; the will to move becomes a rumor in a parliament of ghosts. The brainstem, ancient reptile, relinquishes its triad of duties: medulla forgets the rhythm of breath, pons unbridges the hemispheres, midbrain dims its colliculi— no more startle at a shadow, no more orient to a sound. Cranial nerves, twelve apostles of sense, betray their stations one by one: olfactory filaments blacken like burnt paper, optic tracts fray to optic dust, trigeminal roots retreat from the face’s map, facial nerves unlearn the grammar of smile, vestibulocochlear spirals unwind their snail-shell song, glossopharyngeal and vagus forget the taste of salt and the swallow of air, spinal accessory shrugs its last, hypoglossal ties its own tongue in a knot of silence. The vascular tree, once arterial Yggdrasil, sheds its leaves of oxygen: aorta stiffens to pipe, carotids clot like forgotten wells, jugulars pool their indigo ink. Capillaries, those democratic rivers, capitulate to stasis; every tissue drinks its last red drop and closes its small, thirsty mouths. The heart, that four-chambered republic, holds its final caucus: sinus node fires a lone, errant spark, then retires; AV node echoes the silence, Bundle of His unbundles, Purkinje fibers forget their purple purpose. Myocardium, thick with the muscle of maybe, relaxes into the flaccid geometry of end. Valves—mitral, tricuspid, aortic, pulmonary— hang like broken turnstiles in a station no train will enter. The pericardial sac, once a drum of war, becomes a deflated wineskin leaking the last of its serous vintage. Lungs, those arboreal sponges, collapse their bronchial branches: trachea rings calcify to stone, bronchioles constrict to capillaries of air, alveoli implode like soap bubbles in a room no child will blow again. The visceral pleura glides no more; parietal pleura adheres in a final, breathless weld. Diaphragm, that faithful piston, descends and never ascends; phrenic nerves, once heralds of inhale, transmit their last static. The thoracic cage, a bellows unstroked, settles into the minor key of stillness. Esophagus, once a chute of communion, closes like a drawstring purse; stomach, that cauldron of acids and appetites, neutralizes its own fire, walls thinning to tissue paper soaked in the ink of its last meal. Duodenum, jejunum, ileum— those serpentine scribes— erase their villi, absorb nothing, secrete nothing, become a single, slack intestine looped like a question with no punctuation. Colon, that patient composter, finishes its fermentation: ascending, transverse, descending, sigmoid— all segments surrender their contents to the rectum’s final, indifferent vault. Anal sphincters relax their lifelong vigilance; the body lets go its last small secret. Liver, great alchemist, transmutes no more: hepatocytes balloon, then burst, Kupffer cells devour their own tails, bile canals clog with verdigris. Portal vein, once a river of nutrients, stagnates to a swamp of bilirubin. Gallbladder, pear of spite, hardens to a gallstone of its own making. Pancreas, islet and acinus, ceases both digestion and destiny: beta cells forget insulin, alpha cells forget glucagon, exocrine ducts dry to chalk. Spleen, red pulp and white, lets go its census of cells; lymphatics, those milky highways, drain to a trickle, then to dust. Thymus, nursery of T-cells, closes its kindergarten doors; no more maturation, no more immunity— the body becomes a country with no borders left to defend. Kidneys, twin beans of balance, fill with the nephrons of their own undoing: glomeruli sclerose to scar, tubules obstruct with casts of protein, collecting ducts deliver their last dilute drop. Renin, erythropoietin, calcitriol— all hormones retire their signatures. Adrenals, perched like crows, cease their adrenal cries: cortex layers peel away— zona glomerulosa, fasciculata, reticularis— each forgetting salt, sugar, sex. Medulla, chrome and noradrenaline, fires no final flight-or-fight. Thyroid, butterfly of metabolism, sheds its follicles; parathyroids, four seeds of calcium, crumble to phosphate dust. Pituitary, master gland in the sella turcica, loses its anterior and posterior voices: no more growth, no more lactation, no more vasopressin to staunch the tide. The gonads, engines of eternity, wind down their gamete clocks: ovaries ovulate no more— follicles atrophy to stroma, corpora lutea scar to albicantia; testes tubule their last seminiferous sigh— Sertoli cells cradle no more young, Leydig cells leak their final testosterone. Skin, the original envelope, tears along its seams: stratum corneum desquamates in silent snow, stratum granulosum forgets its granules, stratum spinosum spins no more, stratum basale ceases mitosis. Dermal papillae flatten, collagen fibrils fray to felt, elastin snaps like old rubber bands. Subcutaneous fat, once insulation, liquefies to oil no lamp will burn. Sweat glands eccrine and apocrine close their coiled ducts; sebaceous glands cease their sebum psalm. Hair, each shaft a chronicle, falls in chapters: anagen arrests, catagen constricts, telogen triumphs— follicles shrink to pinpricks, scalp becomes a desert where no oasis of oil remains. Nails, lunula and matrix, halt their keratin march; cuticles retreat, plates crack like old ice. Teeth, those ivory sentinels, loosen in their alveolar crypts: periodontal ligaments dissolve, cementum crumbles, dentin yellows to cave, pulp retracts its nervous root. The senses, one by one, abdicate their thrones: rods and cones bleach in the dark, macula lutea fades to ash, cornea clouds like pond ice; tympanic membrane slackens, ossicles ossify in their chain, organ of Corti curls its hair cells inward; olfactory epithelium sloughs its cilia, taste pores seal their buds; pacinian corpuscles lose their onion layers, Meissner’s touch goes numb. Bones, the final fortress, open their gates: trabeculae thin to lace, cortical bone perforates like wormwood, periosteum peels away, marrow fat yellows, then whites, then vanishes. Joints, those synovial symphonies, grind to a halt: cartilage fibrillates, synovium dries, menisci tear their last silent tear. Muscles, once engines of will, atrophy to string: myofibrils unravel, sarcoplasmic reticulum leaks its calcium, mitochondria power down their Krebs. The name, that last small country, is annexed by silence: first the given, then the family, then the nickname, the pet name, the secret name whispered in the dark— all borders erased, all citizens deported to the republic of the unremembered. Outside, the cosmos rehearses its vast indifference: a neutrino passes through the corpse without learning its story, a photon scatters off a cornea that no longer reflects, a gravitational wave ripples through the skeleton’s calcium and finds no resistance. Inside, the body is a library after the last book has burned— shelves of organs, spines of bone, all catalogued under the Dewey decimal of dust. And in the place where even dust forgets it was once a person, a final negation negates itself: not void, not silence, but the pre-echo of a question that was never asked. The universe, that great erasure, turns the page. No margin note. No footnote. No period.