A Life Compressed

I sat in that stained, lime-green chair, next to the silent figure in the bed. I did not look at her.
Instead, I stared at the regular blips making jagged peaks on their way across  the monitor screen.  Blip. Blip. Blip. 

And I wondered, how can a whole life, with all its moments, hopes and devastations, loves and pet peeves, be compressed into a blip on a monitor screen?

The answer is, it can't.  This isn't life, anymore than hieroglyphics are life. 

They are the evidence of life, however. 

One moment there are jagged peaks, and life endures.  The next, there's a flat plain, and life has gone away, with no fanfare, no parades, no gust of wind or grim organ chord to mark its passage.  Peaks to plains, life just...leaves.