I am Afraid to Die

We’ve all been there. It’s say, 1 am, and you’re tossing and turning in bed. Maybe it’s too hot in your room. Maybe it’s too cold. Maybe your partner or roommate is snoring like the world’s sleepiest jackhammer. Either way, you can’t sleep, and suddenly, you’re slammed with that thought that’s been lurking in your mind all day. There’s no ignoring it now. That big terrifying ball of darkness has taken over your brain, and you’ve got to ride this out. It’s time to get existential, baby!

Have fun at work tomorrow!

Whether we want to or not, we’re all intimately acquainted with our intrusive thoughts. These thoughts clamor from the darkness and snuggle up like a toxic ex-partner who just wanted to come over because they miss you. Or they are about as subtle as the Kool-Aid-man bursting through your skull. Everyone’s got their tormentor. It’s shocking how many inventive ways our brains torture us. Thanks for that one, evolution!

These things vary from person to person. You could be jumped by that stupid thing you said ten years ago, or remember how you keep ghosting your friend, or you could have just come to the painful realization that you hate your job. Maybe the world is about to end, and all you can do is lay in bed and panic.

For me, it’s the fear of death. And before I get someone all uppity about how they never want to live forever—no crap. What I’m talking about is the sudden nothingness—the ability to not, well, be. The feeling starts in my chest. It’s like someone has jammed a bunch of cotton balls in my sternum, and every breath cements them in place. Before you know it, I’m curled up against my pillow, counting down the hypothetical days I have left on this rock and thinking about hurtling through the vast nothingness in a universe that doesn’t know or care that I even exist. Some would call this a panic attack. I’d call this Tuesday night.

It only takes one tiny thought before the proverbial dominoes are toppling across your brain, each impact hitting you like a mallet on glass. We all get caught in those downward spirals. The synapses in our brain fire off like a lightning storm, each thought pinging off the next in some grand design whose purpose makes you question what the hell you’re doing on this damned planet. We all feel it.

There is comfort in that, I think.

When you think about it, we’re all just larger-than-average meatballs with overactive imaginations sitting inside the studio apartment that is our skull. Hunks of flesh and blood and water that do nothing but churn and gurgle and sweat and freak out over things we can’t control. Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Fear of the things we can’t control, or the things that we could have controlled but didn’t, or things we may be able to control but won’t. It’s like sitting on a bus and realizing no one is at the wheel. The: “Oh shit, I’m about to crash, and this thing doesn’t have seatbelts!”

With all of the infinite wisdom that my keyboard provides me, I can say with total confidence that there is good and bad news with this mindset. The bad is that we’re never going to have control. I don’t care how stable or unstable your life is. At the end of the day, you can’t change the way of things. We are all out here scrambling together. Just a few million years ago, our ancestors realized they could use sticks for more things than smacking each other. Do you really think that within those few million years—a nano-blink in the grand scale of existence—we would have the capacity to understand what the hell is going on? No, and that leads me to the good news:

It does not matter one bit.

I don’t mean this in a nihilistic, “nothing matters, and we should all give up,” sort of way. Once apathy waddles its vapid way into your brain, then we have an issue. You shouldn’t stop caring. You should stop freaking about all that big stuff. Freaking out in your sweat-stained sheets isn’t going to change anything. But you can change your moment-to-moment. Your day-by-day is malleable. Make use of that. We are all stuck with our brains. Each person has their own unique flavor of fear. Find the comfort in knowing that you’re not going to figure out shit. It is okay. If you are one of those rare few who has found the mystical place of solace and satisfaction, I envy you. I don’t believe you, but I envy you anyway.

We’re all riding this rock as a collection of overimaginative primates made up of a bunch of cells, filled with goop and mitochondria—the powerhouse of said cells—and molecules and atoms, with electricity zapping to and fro, allowing us to panic so.

Wild, isn’t it?

So, I say let’s panic together. Panic, get out of bed, and go do what it is you want to do. Who cares if no one is driving this bus? When your intrusive thoughts Kool-Aid-man blast into your brain or your toxic ex slips under your covers tonight, try to remember that we’re all dealing with the same damned thing. Don’t let the fear tear you down. We’re all here together. We can at least try to enjoy this stupid thing we call life.

I mean, what the hell else are we going to do?

The End

“Take all the time you need. We’ll be right through that door when you’re ready.”

The voice had said this over an hour ago. Or had it been days? I can’t tell. Time doesn’t seem to work the same way here. I guess that’s because there is no time anymore, but that’s difficult to think about. All of this is difficult to think about. I sat on an ordinary chair and stared at an ordinary wooden door. I say ordinary, but this was all just an image my mind made up to make sense of everything. To be honest, it didn’t even feel like I was sitting. And the stabilizing image my mind conjured was a beige waiting room of a doctor’s office with a single door. How trite.

I know what’s behind that door. That very ordinary door that my brain thinks would be comforting to stare at instead of an endless, colorless void. It’s The End. Of course, it is. How else would I imagine it? I’ve never been one for creativity. At least, that’s what I think. It’s difficult to recall anything that happened beyond this room. It’s as if all my memories are underwater. All I know for sure is that I’m me. And somehow, I know that beyond that door, I will no longer be me. I also know that my mind has done a really bad job at imagining a place where I’d feel comfortable.

“Have you decided?” The voice came again, speaking as if inside my mind. “It’s okay. You don’t need to rush this. It’s hard letting it all go. Take your time.”

Why did it keep trying to reassure me? I don’t want to be okay with this. I don’t want to be okay with The End.

“It’s not The End, you know? And no, not the beginning either. It’s more of a continuation. An expansion of awareness, if you will. You and I? We’re the same. Did you know that?”

I didn’t and I hated it.

“Calm down. Okay, I’ll check in later once you had some more time to think.”

“Wait.” My voice didn’t come from my mouth but somewhere else I couldn’t place. “How long?”

“Well, how long was I gone last time?”

“I—I don’t know. You tell me.”

The voice laughed. “That’s right. Time. You’re going to be glad to be rid of that. Trust me. Now please, just relax. I’ll be back at some point.”

I could have sworn I heard footsteps as the voice left me, but it was just my mind trying to cope with existing inside a shapeless, formless void. So, I sat (or floated?) alone in a beige waiting room. I noticed a poster on the wall. One that wasn’t there before—or if it was, I hadn’t noticed. It hung beside the door, a black border with the image of a setting sun with bold orange words saying, “Relax. Breathe. You’re in control.”

An inspirational poster? Really? That’s what my mind decided would comfort me. Sitting in purgatory, because that’s where I assume I am at this point, not knowing how the hell I died talking with God or an angel or a demon, or Satan, and my mind throws that up on the wall. It doesn’t even mean anything.

“I think the poster adds to the room.”

“What?”

“I said I’d be back.”

“You just left.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” it laughed again. “I really can’t get the hang of this time thing. I’m sorry. It’s not something I have to deal with much.”

“Are you God?”

“Oh heavens no.”

“So, this isn’t The End?”

“Nope, not The End. I thought I explained this already? I apologize. I might be thinking about a time that hasn’t happened to you yet. Okay, well, no matter. We’re the same. You and I and everything else that has ever existed—it’s all the same. Your mind has been a bit constrained during your life. Until your accident, that is.”

“My accident?”

“It’s irrelevant. Sorry, I understand this is difficult.”

“So, it isn’t The End behind that door?”

“I’ll tell you now, it isn’t your doctor. Nice room by the way. I like the door. Very thematic.”

“What will happen when I remember?”

“Like I said. An expansion of your awareness. You will exist as a part of everything. It can be a shocking thing until you’re ready for it. That’s why you had your life. Think of it as preparation before rejoining, well, everything. The you that you are now won’t disappear, as I’m sure you’re worried about. You will never go away. Nothing ever goes away around here, not even this cute little room. You can hold onto this for as long as you’d like. After, you will just be a smaller part of a bigger you that you have yet to experience.” The voice stopped talking, and the silence continued for a moment. “Would you like to be left alone? We can check in again later.”

“You referred to yourself as “we” again.”

“Weren’t you listening?”

“It’s a lot to take in.”

“Don’t overthink it. I’ll be back before you know it.”

I sat and tried to think of anything else besides the ordinary wooden door and the voice that called itself “we.” What did it mean to have my awareness “expanded?” Would it be painful? I wasn’t so sure if I liked the sound of being a smaller part of something.

I looked from the wall to stupid poster. “Relax. Breathe. You’re in control.”

Piss off.

What even was this? The voice said I will still exist, but it also said that I’d be everything. If I’m everything, how can I be me? Will I like it? Will I be able to like it? I mean, this voice doesn’t even know what time is. How will I be able to remember myself in all of that? What if it already started? I can’t remember much before I showed up here. Before I die—

“Car crash.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Don’t worry it wasn’t your fault. Well, it kind of was. But let’s not worry about that.”

I sat for a moment, a question burning on the surface of my non-expanded awareness.

I looked at the drop tiled ceiling that I could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago. “Who was I?”

“Well, that doesn’t really matter at all now does it?”

“That isn’t helping.”

“Sorry. I’m not trying to be insensitive. But I promise you it will only make it harder to walk through that door. Granted, you’ve got all the non-time you need. I don’t mind. I’m just trying to make this as easy as possible for you.”

“You’re doing a crap job at it.”

“I apologize about that.”

The room fell into a deep silence. Well, I guess it had been like this plenty of times before, but I didn’t realize how quiet it was until then. There was no sound. And I mean, at all. I couldn’t even hear myself breathe. Now that I think about it, room or no room, I had no sense of well…anything. I guess that was to be expected inside of an endless, shapeless void.

Maybe this was hell.

“Again, not related to any religion.”

“Right, sorry. It’s just hard to believe.”

“It’ll be a lot easier to understand once you go through the door. You know, you could imagine something else if that would be easier? Maybe jump into a pool? Oh, or climb up on a chariot. Now wouldn’t that be something?”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Suite yourself. We’ve seen it all before. Maybe you’ll change your mind later. Just Relax. Breathe. You’re in control.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“What? I think it’s a very nice poster. You put it there yourself.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Well, I like it.”

“You mean, “we” like it?”

“Of course.”

“How can everything even like something?”

“Don’t you like things?”

I thought for a moment, trying my best to imagine something from before. “I think so. I mean, of course I do.”

“And if you can like things, why can’t we? And like I’ve said, you, me, we, are—”

“Everything. I got it.” These conversations were going around in circles.

“Would you like to be left alone again?”

“Please.”

I stayed there for a long while. Again, I have no idea how long, and neither did the voice, I assumed. I had so many questions about everything. About me, about the voice, about this place. But I knew answers wouldn’t help. I’d just continue around and around and around talking about weird, vague ideas that can’t quite be explained because my mind is too small or some crap. The worst part was that all the supposedly satisfying answers waited for me, feet away behind a perfectly cliché door into oblivion. Or not oblivion? It still didn’t make sense.

After another long while of questioning my questions, I appeared before the door. I didn’t stand, or move, or anything. I just appeared before it without realizing I had decided this. I didn’t come to any conclusions or make up my mind. I just appeared right in front of that ordinary door.

The voice didn’t say anything. It didn’t need to. I knew it was watching, or whatever equivalent an all-existing entity did. No part of me was ready for this. If this was the light at the end of the tunnel, then my brown doctor door was one piss poor excuse of a light. And I had no urge to open it. But if I didn’t, that meant spending more time, or whatever time was, here, listening to the voice’s constant half-assed explanations. At the very least, this would be something different. If moving meant to continue whatever it was that the voice was talking about, so be it.

“Are you going to open it?”

“I was about to. You kind of just ruined the moment.”

“Oh. Oops, sorry. Go on ahead.”

I tried to regain my focus, and before I realized it, the door swung open. I didn’t push it. I didn’t turn the nob. It just popped open, and well…there it was.

“Finally.”

Mountain Top

I’m climbing this mountain to reach the top. I climb up narrow paths of rocks and dirt. Up and up, one foot after the other. I climb up so I can look down. Look down and scream. Sweating, and tired, I scream at the valley. My echo screams back.

For a lingering moment, my voice ricochets across the landscape. It returns just enough times to remind myself that no one is listening. On top of this mountain, I listen as my words meld into the cutting wind and my sentences dash across pine trees and rivers. I yell to be heard, but the moment doesn’t last. Up here, I am answered by myself. Always by myself.

My voice may turn the heads of those below, but few care about the source or the reason. My voice is a momentary pop in a world of horrible indifference, skidding out on some stranger’s driveway miles away. My energy is spent. I try again, laughing, screaming, and crying. I breathe deep and bay into the world like a lost wolf.

There are only so many times my voice can echo. On hands and knees, I beg the winds that silence me. With strained vocal cords, I shout. To stop means to return to silence. To return to a world that marches to a rhythm of dead voices. On this mountain, for a lingering moment, I am heard. Not by those below, or the birds above, but by myself.

And then I begin my descent.