Bones

I don't watch the TV show Bones religiously, but I catch it now and again.  The characters are amusing but what I find interesting are the many corpses and the discussions about the rate of decomposition. A new body shows up at the beginning of each episode, usually a skeleton with a trace of flesh, covered with maggots.

Hodgson, the guy who understands bugs, worms and the bacteria that destroy the tissue, is one of my favorite characters.  He can figure by the creepy crawlies how long the victim has been dead.  If there are rats involved, he catches them and examines their feces.  Disgusting?  Yes, but an essential part of solving the mystery.

Bodies that are not embalmed deteriotrate rapidly.  Bones and the other crime scene investigation series remind me of the statues carved in the Middle Ages, of the handsome people buried below but with worms crawling out of their stomachs. The people of that era understood mortality. 

Today, bodies are embalmed and painted so that the deceased "looks natural" and people view their loved ones as if they are only sleeping.

There is none of that in Bones. We are only a few days to falling apart once we breathe our last.   Dead is dead.

There is something healthy about accepting our mortality.  The crime scene series may be this generations way of doing that.