THE EVENT

EVENTFUL

I was sick, so sick in my body it encroached on my mind.

I was terminally ill and I was going to die (the death of the terminally ill) slow, painful and memorable–it would be a short one for me, and hopefully last just a little longer for my mourners. I was going to be a member of the dead at the age of 26. I had been alive for barely more than a quarter century. This should have been about enough time to fulfill the bulk of my bucket list, for in my soon to be ended life, I had wished only for two things: to live a “normal” life and to live long. I looked set to miss out on the latter but I had already missed out on the former. I had not lived a normal life, but worse than that, was the fact that I had lived my life trapped in the lower margins of normal.

In what appeared to be my last days, now and again I went over the details of my life. I had a good memory and it was easy to recollect most of it, which was generally boring, all the more so since I was habitually introspective and I had gone over whatever details it contained a million times in the past. So it was that pondering over my approaching death was clearly more interesting. I didn’t exactly look forward to my death (the termination of my existence) but the process of dying, right before my very eyes (in slow-motion) held out a new experience.

In effect I was going to be around to mourn my own death. That was one of the privileges of a slow and painful death. When people genuinely mourn the dead I assume it must be for one of the following reasons: they do it in regret of a life not well lived, a life cut short in its prime, or the eternal loss of an entity added to this was the knowledge that one of the mourners was next. I was going to mourn my existence which had been squandered on a hope for “tomorrow” with little left for the moment.

I awaited death and promised myself to be brave and strong, I was going to steel myself against any show of confusion, fear or weakness. I would die like a Spartan (an ideal I was very far from). In fact I hoped to be remembered for my show of strength on my death bed in my last days. It would probably be the only thing worth remembering about my time on earth.

I looked back with half regret that I didn’t in my life time ace my degree courses, that I didn’t speak my mind as clearly and often as I should have and I never once got into a fight. But it (the regret) was a good sign; it was perhaps the only indication that I maybe still had a will to live. But a will in this case did not have enough muscle to make a way. So I was going to die anyway. Behind all of these was the fact that my death may go un­­-mourned. Just as it should and I can explain.

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To be continued