Disbelief.
Apathy. Doubt. Blood. Watches stop ticking. Is it time for me? To flee or not to
flee? Blinking between blank stares. Walking on knives. Exiting wounds.
Entering lives. Ten smiles for every bullet. The hospital bill abides. Every
death deserves a punch line. Every almost-death deserve s a sequel. Life to be
continued. Clocks to be aborted. Voids to be adorned on necklaces. A flea
market for lifestyles. Wounds to be exploited…
It
isn’t as if I never thought about death, as in no longer being alive. Studying
philosophy enough kind of shoves that topic down throat. I never devoted much
thought to the whole ‘dying’ part of it because it always seemed synonymous
with the shitty parts of living. I can now vouch that such a comparison is 100%
accurate. No matter how much peace you’ve made with yourself and closure you’ve
redeemed from life’s debtors, the dreadful pangs of pending death never tickle.
In your very heart of hearts, you may be ready to let go and drift away into
the abysmal nothingness, but life is a stubborn child that won’t let you leave
because it never thinks playtime is ever over. And, as I am now home recovering
from my most recent almost-death, a part of me kind of wants a memory of the
event to cling to for esoteric symbolism, but nothing seems to stay.
It
was all so fluid to me, so smooth, so constant, and yet taking place so far
away, so outside of myself. Every second of it, even the sound of the gunfire
behind me seemed to have been cut from the background noises of a shitty
cartoon. It was more like a bunch of pops from cheap fireworks or from a
children’s toy cap-gun than a bang or a boom. It wasn’t the kind of sound that
incites fear. Nothing that was happening seemed to be. My bleeding was no
exception, nor was my wobbled stumbling or the yelling out ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my
God!’ in my broken panicked voice. It seemed like a very low-quality comedy
sketch, where I committed to the ultra-realism of the scene and proceeded to
act out my role even as my audience fled after robbing my co-star. Digging and
digging and digging for a punch line.
I
wouldn’t go so far as to say I am traumatized. Inconvenienced? Yes. Hurt?
Certainly so. Damaged beyond repair? Perhaps. But I don’t think there is a
lingering psychological injury that requires treatment—which is something I’m
sure every crazy person says when questioned about their degree of craziness.
However, some part of me certainly feels displaced from the event. It’s like
part of me is still reconciling the fact that it actually happened and it
wasn’t all just some sort of existential episode of Punk’d to illuminate some
kind of higher truth that lies dormant in my memory bank. The place where I
reminisce feels like a peculiar Where’s
Waldo painting and I don’t even know what dream Waldo looks like to even
begin searching…
Only after you get shot do you ponder to yourself, “Could I have taken that bullet more gracefully, perhaps?” Like, I feel like I should have had some clever one-liner to say as I took baby steps toward my demise, but only whimpered commentary projected forth. I remember ruminating out loud, as my essence began to puddle on the floor, outrageous things like, “You see, this is the part Bruce Willis never tells you about in those Die-Hard movies… I’m calling Bullshit on Die-Hard… If I survive this, I could become a rapper…” Bad jokes mask physical pain better than any amount of Oxycodone. I think I would have bled out and lost consciousness without them. On a high note, I didn’t cry or soil myself, even though I felt 100% comfortable with doing so. I just didn’t have to go. Although I wasn’t completely vigilant in my embrace of a foreign metallic projectile forcing my body to erupt with blood, I did not feel terrorized.
The
thought of getting shot is far more painful than the actual getting shot (at
least in the case of a 9mm bullet. I don’t think I’d be around to comment on
and reflect on my experiences with a .38 or a .45 or a 50. Caliber). It’s good
to know my luck hasn’t entirely depleted, yet... Anyways, it’ is the kind of
pain that demands stillness, as if you are listening closely for your body to
whisper instructions to you but physical sensations are shouting gibberish in its
place. As with so many past instances where my imagination of an event
imprinted more of an impact than the actual event did, a part of me feels
incomplete for remaining unimpressed. Getting shot is an extremely critical
life event because life could’ve ended in a flash, so surviving it seems to
warrant an evolution of character. Something empowering is supposed to happen
from telling death, “Not today, my friend,” and having your polite disregard be
obliged. Like losing my virginity, I thought I was going to wake up a whole new
man with six-pack abs, a biker beard, and the strength to bench 300lbs. And
yet, I feel as though I got shot incorrectly, like my near-death-experience is
somewhat invalidated because I hadn’t had some sort of life-altering
revelation. It didn’t feel like there was a celestial message to consider. No
grand life lesson hidden beneath the splattered blood. Nothing to humble me or
embolden me. I feel, neither, weaker or stronger after what happened. It’s one of those things where, if it didn’t
scar you deep down in your heart of hearts, it makes you wonder if it really happened…
Too
often do we convince ourselves that we have more tomorrows than we have
yesterdays. Because of this, I have been thinking about the context of my
eventual death with my time recovering from my almost death. Not that any death
is entirely rejoiceful, but it had me wondering what is the best possible way
to die if I had the luxury to choose. Though I don’t want to be engulfed by the
pain of whatever I’m dying from, I would like to feel some pain so that I could
have a mental semblance of the transition from life to death, from feeling to
unfeeling, from sound to silence, to drift away by a wave of serenity in the
ocean of death.
That
being said, deaths that would be considered too drawn out to enjoy would be a
death by drowning, burning alive, hanging, suffocation, thirst, an untreated festering wound, stabbed
to death by a tiny blade, being slowly crushed under the weight of a heavy
object, choking on my own vomit due to severe sickness, hanging upside down
until too much blood rushes to my head, being eaten alive by an animal that
can’t finish me off in one bite, being gradually decapitated from non-vital
body parts until I bleed to death, fiery diarrhea, or bludgeoning. Basically,
any death that is overly-defined by the amount of pain experienced is probably
the worst because I wouldn’t be able to focus on the harmonious transition of
consciousness. Some deaths that are considered too quick to enjoy would be a
death by a gunshot to the head, stabbing in the head, a sudden beheading, a
massive explosion, unexpectedly dying in my sleep, or any other death that
happens so fast that I don’t even realize I’m dying.
There’s
that golden middle area that is considered ideal, where I am aware that a
sudden death is about to happen and I have the luxury to reflect upon the end
of my life and say my goodbyes or, perhaps, have some clever last-words.
Another tolerable death in my opinion is one where I am bleeding to death with
only a moderate amount of pain, able to comprehend what is happening and
determine for myself that THIS IS IT,
followed by some clever last-words before meeting my end. Having a long fall to
my death gives me some time to think about life and acts as a buffer between
the inevitable, which I imagine is comforting before the end. I imagine the
most fulfilling death is one where I die saving the life of someone I truly
love or someone who is a genuinely good person, whose extended existence would
make the world a better place—I could happily die like this with no clever last
words because I had a resounding last action.
I
think a healthy detachment from life is necessary to keep smiling amidst the
horrors of being alive. You don’t want to die on the inside before you die on
the outside because life on the outside would lose all its allure. Masochistic
or not, enjoying life is the bare minimum requirement of living. Otherwise,
you’re just dying. And, since, we are all going to die regardless of our
dietary regiment, credit score, or the depth of our sadness, it doesn’t make
sense to give death more than it demands of us. Life is the only currency death
accepts, after all, and until that debt is paid in full, on your terms or
otherwise, only you can reflect on the life you’re living. Don’t wait until
your almost-death to realize you’ve been living an almost-life. It really takes
the charm away from dying.
Give
yourself a slice of cake. You deserve it.
