At a recent Parent Teacher's Day at his daughter's preschool, Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder took photos of kid's answers to the question "What happens when people get old?"
For the most part, the children seem united: people become disgusting mummies when they get older. The juice of life evaporates from their once ripe and luscious body, leaving only a desiccated husk... like a juicy pair left out in the African sun. You get "scribble scrabbles" on your hands. The skin of the old person becomes like beef jerky; their liver fails, leaving disgusting blemishes all over their neck: "first the dots are purples and then they get bigger and black." Wattles form. And then, as you get older, the mind snaps, unable to deal with what the body has become. The madness of the elderly exhibits itself in surprising ways: often, "they color their hair purple."
But I think Zoey's answer (above) is my favorite: "Heaven is a place where all animals go. People's heaven is underground." Right... in the festering dark, surrounded by rats and worms and maggots. Zoey is going to be the very image of a heartbreaking goth girl when she grows up, one suspects.
